Tom Easton (3)Recensioni

Spies AND supernatual abilities??? They had me from page one and I loved every second!

It was an interesting enough read.

I received this book as part of LibraryThing’s early reviewer program in exchange for an honest review.

This book started out pretty strong, but then it drifted off into different threads and the story weakened because of it. Still it ended strong.

Don't judge this book by its cover. This is a 1.5 stars for me, despite the amazing cover art. The individual elements that make up this book, when looked at statistically seem like they should be very interesting. Spies, assassinations, mystery, super powers, end-of-life main character, it all sounds like something that should be inherently enjoyable with very little difficulty bringing all the elements together in an entertaining way. What is delivered, however, is a great study in how even the greatest ideas can fail in execution. What is interesting about this book is that I found far more enjoyment trying to understand why the book wasn't enjoying to read than I did actually reading it. At times it is difficult to tell why the story falls flat. Ultimately I think it is because the story, world, and characters are all under developed, leaving the reader with little or no attachment to the aforementioned elements. The main characters are old, but other than the occasional direct references to their ages, it doesn't play into the story at all, to the extent that I often forget their ages and when I remember how old they are some of the scenes seem less believable. The story seems half-baked. It never really feels clear why everything is happening, how it became that everything important happens at a small restaurant, or why I should care. This underdeveloped story to some degree ties into the fact that the world in general seems very shallow. This shallowness keeps the story from ever really taking off, and steals any surprise or mystery from the reader. Nothing is ever included that isn't needed later. Some elements or characters don't show up until exactly when they are needed, introducing new superpowers like a child that has backed themselves into a corner while telling a story. Like I said at the beginning of the review, the individual elements have great potential, and combining them could be an absolute slam dunk, but it didn't happen in this book. The story, world, and characters all need more depth to create anything interesting.

This novel is entertaining, intriguing and suspenseful, focussed on a group of elderly former intelligence agents with paranormal skills. I enjoyed it and hope for at least one sequel.

I was one of the lucky LibraryThing folks to win a copy of this book in the Early Reviewer program. I'm always fascinated by books that come my way from this route because usually they are books I would not have picked up if I saw them in a store.

I'm not sure in this case that my thoughts there hold true because ESPionage: Change of Regime would have appealed to me from the shelf. As a fifty-something I like to find books centered around people my own age and that isn't very easy, but the characters in this novel are holdovers from the cold war era, pretty close to my age.

I loved the premise of the book - spies with ESP. I do believe some people know more about other people either from hidden talents or just better observation, so I think the idea is quite plausible.

What wasn't as plausible was the story arc of this book. Yes it is a work of fiction; however, there were jumps in the story that made little sense to me as a reader and this made it very difficult to continue reading. It was frustrating.

I am an apolitical person so the political jabs in the book didn't hit home with me, but I'm sure some folks would have enjoyed them. The ideas shown of how the terrorism was spread around the world were valid, certainly possible and that made the story resonate better.

I loved the characters and I loved the concept of the book but the delivery was just difficult for me. I would say give the book a try, don't expect too much from the transitions and hope for the best. There's some good stuff in here.

The authors set up this series as “Sci-Spy” — a new genre, part science fiction, part spy thriller. I thought worth a try. I really tried. But I just could not get engaged with any part of this story.

Not sure where the science fiction part was - miniaturized drones? The spy thriller part was not very believable. Not recommended for anyone, except maybe those that wondered what happened to the CIA’s 1960s program to exploit the paranormal - this probably was not the outcome.

Fast paced thriller. The characters’ psychic abilities were a bit of a stretch for me, but this is not my typical genre, it was still an interesting, fun story. I particularly liked the older characters, a nice change from the “stereotypes” in most thrillers and even a little romance.

ESPionage: Regime Change (A Psychic CIA Novel) is a fast-paced, edge-of-your seat, psychic action thriller. It is the first in a psychic CIA series. World leaders are being mysteriously assassinated around the globe, succumbing to heart attacks out of the blue, or spontaneously bursting into flames.

Enter a group of senior citizen psychics, all of whom used to work for their various governments. The main protagonist of the book is Gabriel, a 74 year old who helps run and is co-owner of Chez Bernie, a top notch French restaurant in Washington D.C.). His partner is another retired government agent psychic from France, Bernarde. Gabriel used to be a psychic agent doing work for the CIA. His path now crosses with an Armenian woman from Russia, another former psychic agent, Katrinka. And suddenly they are all thrust into employment again, this time with the CIA, as they work against time trying to track down a group of terrorists of unknown origin who are targeting the U.S. President and Vice President, after having already assassinated several world leaders.

Are these senior citizens up to the task of mixing it up with high tech international killers, some of whom also seem to have "powers"? Along with a couple of youngsters that join up with them, they are sure going to give it a try! They are faced with untold dangers and violence at every twist and turn. The political turmoil is sadly too close to our chaotic reality, the names and descriptions of fictional political parties all too easy to envision as a reality in the very near future.

A romantic relationship is brewing as well for Gabriel and Katrinka. Will they be able to enjoy some welll-deserved late-life happiness together?

The stakes are high all the way around. The writing is pretty good. The pacing and intense action really keep you riveted. The character development is excellent. I thought it could do with a touch more editing, but all in all it's quite an enjoyable read and I would recommend it for anyone liking psychic action stories.

ESPionage : Regime Change was a quick, mildly entertaining read. The cultural, linguistic and other background details about people and places sprinkled throughout added some nice color. Beyond that, however, it didn't hang together for me. The attempts to draw upon current events, public figures, and our sensationalist news cycle seemed simplistic and silly at times. The treatment of the science fiction elements came across as uneven, leaning toward hard sci-fi in some areas and soft in others. There was plenty of action, daring and sacrifice to go around, but the depictions of the various government agencies, their agents, and those agents' actions stretched credulity too far. It was fun at times, but otherwise felt under-developed.

Easton and Wu's ESPionage: Regime Change is a whirlwind read which perfectly matches its whirlwind plot. The story blends together random touches of romance, backstory drama, and humor while giving the reader a completely different take on the concept of espionage that includes futuristic phycho-human evolutionary warfare. The humor was forced at times, and the foreshadowing a little transparent, but all-in-all I found ESPionage to be a very enjoyable read. The swiftness of the story makes some of the less-desirable elements not seem too bad as they don't at all distract from the underlying plot.

I could not become engaged with this story. It didn't appeal to me.

the book was ok, not really into esp stuff. it was worth the read sort of.

An interesting SI-FI CIA spy novel with such interesting & unusual characters - a very different way to "spy" from mind reading to drones flying around - story held my interest to the very end - even had just a little romance.

The book was alright but hard to get into. I love that the description of the characters is so very detailed so you can visually picture each character however the plot could have been better and improved on.

It wasn't for me. The premise of the storyline is a nice plotline but it could have been better. I do like how each character have their own personality. Even the title of the book is great.

Honestly not for me. The political banter was over the top and silly at points. The plot certainly had room for better.

Fantastic, intriguing plot ruined by terrible writing.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. The plot is fascinating: aging psychics who were once employed by intelligence agencies have had their roles usurped by technology. World events and a series of psychic attacks bring them back into the game. This is a great setup and I had high hopes starting this book. Those hopes were quickly dashed, however, by the poor writing. The biggest offender is the poor sense of internal time; I could never tell when events were happening. Days or weeks would pass from one paragraph to the other with little indication of the time jump. This left me confused as to when things were happening. Additionally, the characters' never seemed to change or develop over the course of the book, they were exactly the same at the end of the book as at the beginning.

The characters were also unrealistic. The main characters are all spies, but they sure jump into trusting people they've just met without a qualm. Additionally, one of the main characters is a teenager who starts a heavy metal band that then regularly plays sets in another characters' Michelin star-level French restaurant in downtown Washington DC and draws huge crowds. This was presented as just a normal thing, but it felt so ludicrously out of place that it detracted from the entire book. If any of the characters had talked about just how bizarre this situation was and maybe laughed about it, I could have gotten on board, as it is it felt completely out of place.

Finally, the authors' political angle is laughable. I think they might have been trying to lampoon current politics by making the parties' positions even more extreme, but it came off as buffoonish and I couldn't get over it.

Quite simply, disappointing. The story never really interested me. Neither did the characters. The whole thing just seemed rather bland. I got over a third of the way into the book and the story just didn't catch hold of me. The writing wasn't bad, but not particularly good either. Rather pedestrian.

It’s a little difficult to understand what’s happening at first, but once you do get it, it’s really interesting. The authors did a great job at establishing character individuality. I really like how culturally and SOMETHING different the three characters Gabriel, Bernard and Katrinka are. I also liked the introduction of more psychics however it was hard to follow along with the introduction of the new characters. Once I got halfway through the book, the action did pick up and made it a lot more exciting to read.
Overall I thought it was a good book with a good storyline. I can tell that there will be an audience for this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

I enjoyed the book though I wish it was longer and the characters were explored more in depth. The book combined current events and fiction in an interesting story. I look forward to the next book in the series.

I like ESPionage: Regime Change's concept: older long-retired telepaths (and other rare abilities) drawn back into deadly national espionage scenarios, and how that might realistically work.

Unfortunately, for me at least, the writing had a number of issues that felt like disruptive speed bumps along the way. Many times I completely lost track of who was where in a scene and who was speaking what parts of dialog (and I backed up to try to reorient myself, not always successfully) due to a frequent lack of cues. And a few times the who-was-where just didn't make sense, including one case of someone entering a building, crossing a lobby, climbing four flights of stairs and approaching a door in the time it took for one character to speak one short sentence. Just lots of clumsy writing moments that too-frequently bumped me out of the story as I backed up to figure out what I'd missed.

The story, overall, was still a mostly fun read, albeit more for the ideas behind what was happening than for the bumpy storytelling. And I did like the fair portrayal of older (70+) protagonists. However, while the end (and the "a psychic CIA novel" subtitle) clearly sets up for more story to come, I'm just not feeling the pull of interest to read them when they do.

LT-ER. The Cold War has never ended. And war doesn’t have to be fought by soldiers on a battlefield. Gabriel and Katrinka are survivors of their countries psychic experiments and warfare. The more things change though the more they stay the same as they are called to put together a unit of psychics to fight the new Cold War. Good characters, nice plotting, scarily believable.

This novel is a short, superficial attempt at a spy thriller with the addition of agents with psychic abilities. It concerns ageing ex-CIA agents with those talents who were retired because they were no longer needed. They are called back into action when a series of assassinations and other activities are undertaken by Russian agents with similar abilities. The novel is nothing to write home about, but it is worth a read; it just needed to be fleshed out a bit more. One problem I did have was when the Russian agents used endearments (in what I assume was their own language), those endearments were in Yiddish...? Anyway, it's worth a read.

When I saw the combination of espionage and the paranormal, I couldn't wait to dive in, however, I was in no way prepared for the rollercoaster ride this book was. From foreign agents to assassination attempts to world domination to every type of psychic phenomenon there is to code breaking and devious masterminds, I can't think of much this story doesn't have. Oh yes, there's even a bit of romance. All in all, a nonstop action-packed page-turning read that'll leave you wanting more.