Review – Mad Science Institute

Title: Mad Science Institute

Author: Sechin Tower

Publisher: Siege Tower Entertainment

Publication Date: December 9, 2011

ASIN: B006KGNKMS

Available at: Amazon – Barnes and Noble

From Goodreads:

Sophia “Soap” Lazarcheck is a girl genius with a knack for making robots-and for making robots explode. After her talents earn her admission into a secretive university institute, she is swiftly drawn into a conspiracy more than a century in the making. Meanwhile and without her knowledge, her cousin Dean wages a two-fisted war of vengeance against a villainous genius and his unwashed minions.

Separately, the cousins must pit themselves against murderous thugs, experimental weaponry, lizard monsters, and a nefarious doomsday device. When their paths finally meet up, they will need to risk everything to prevent a mysterious technology from bringing civilization to a sudden and very messy end.

Review*:

While this book is well-written, I had several problems with it. The heroine “Soap” was unreasonably naive. She receives ten thousand dollars in cash for a job and believes it to be a student job. I have a hard time believing even a naive girl genius would think that. She was not only extremely naive, she was also very awkward and immature.

I had less of a problem with Dean. Although I did find it hard to swallow that he’d propose to an ex-girlfriend of his that he hadn’t seen in what I thought was years. I was able to suspend belief enough to grasp that their relationship was strange enough for them to become engaged after such a long hiatus though and carry on. He becomes motivated to become the dean of Mad Science Institute even though he doesn’t have  a college degree. Once more I had to suspend belief to swallow that. I had to suspend belief many times in this book.

The villains are a corny unwashed biker gang. They were all of enormous size and of minuscule brain power.  I found it too stereotypical and cliched for words.  The main antagonist was the most stereotypical of all, but maybe that was part of the book’s appeal. The ultimate crime fighting, world saving good guy versus bad guy.

For all that the book still had its interesting twists and turns. The plot moved along at a nice clip. There was a Batman and Robin feel to it that you couldn’t mistake. Once you suspended belief, got past the flaws, and took the book for what it was, it was a light-hearted, entertaining read.

*I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.

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