Luke Kincaid is a model employee at the only company in the world that can deliver wireless electricity. He's engaged to the CEO's daughter and is quickly becoming the go-to corporate spy on its behalf. But Luke would rather tear the company down from the inside. The company killed his parents and it must pay. Threatened by a secret that could destroy him and any chance of revenge, Luke sets off to find the true origins of this obscure technology, but discovers a vast deception that will change the world forever.
Dan Kolbet lives in Spokane, Washington, with his family. He is an independent author, former newspaper editor, and reporter. He is currently working on his next story.
I enjoyed the premise and the pace of this book, but it was filled with a number of distracting errors. For example:
""He swung his arms as if he were playing a set of air drums -- symbols and all." "She had fallen asleep as the medicine took affect." "the federal government had failed to come to its aide." "look who's head is finally in the game." "she was dragging her heal on the mare's flank" "The shipment from Moldova was shrink wrapped on four wooden palettes." "He sited health concerns."
There were also sentence structure problems: comma splices and sentence fragments weren't uncommon.
It's frustrating to read a book that would be much better with good editing.
Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy goes on special mission to prove himself to girl’s rich father, boy gets screwed by girl’s rich father, girl showed pictures of boy with other woman, boy told girl doesn’t want him, boy and girl get together and destroy father’s company, everybody happy but father.
This is a summary of this book. Not the greatest summary, well… not the greatest book. Call us even.
The concept for this near future techno thriller was enough to lure me into reading it. After the opening passages, I was a bit concerned about the basis for the core plot - wireless delivery of electricity in a future where burning fossil fuel for energy is prohibited. Yes indeed, I liked the concept and let myself overlook a significant missing element. Though the author did a great job of presenting the possibility of transmitting/delivering electricity to customers, it was never clear to me where or how the electricity was generated.
Regardless of the missing element, the story was well crafted and included all the character components that keep me reading. It is hard not to like main character Luke Kincaid. He's an underdog who looses his parents in a car accident (see book's description). The inclusion of a love triangle, a set of villains, corporate greed, and an evil patriarch fit well into this fast paced story.
If you're a reader that likes a quick thrill where the good guys win in the end, check reality at the door and let yourself enjoy this one.
Off The Grid is a very detailed yet fast paced action book with a backdrop of technology. Almost instantly the characters and the setting brings you in and it is hard to put the book down. Even with the dozen or so characters it is still very easy to know who is who, even if they only appear a few times scattered throughout. It was written very well and the dialogue between characters also seemed very real. The technology in the book is quite plausible based on the current path things are heading, which made even the more technical things very believable instead of fantastical like I find with most technology-based books. There are so many twists and turns, that it has you questioning what is actually happening for a few chapters until it is revealed.
All around, this was a great read that had very few drawbacks and I recommend for anyone into corporate espionage or a realistic future of global electricity.
Very well written!! The main characters were well thought out and clearly developed, the plot line made me angry with the big wireless electrical company (StuTech) cutting people off and bad things going on, but in the end, everything seemed to point to the next thing.
I certainly enjoyed the author's writing style and the way he drew you into the story, and I hope he plans on writing more, as I would enjoy reading more from him.
Not a bad book at all, great characters easy to follow, actually drags you in! Even though most is very predictable, the parts that grab you, grab you hard and tight! Typical big company what they have is never enough! And how many casualties are left behind as they move ahead? And at what price will they pay to stay there??
This book is a combination of a thriller / science fiction / post-apocalyptic fiction that kept you engaged throughout the book. Without having a spoiler, the main premise is a new technology that transmits electricity wirelessly (vs. the current technology of transmission lines) and the effort to break the monopoly by those negatively impacted by this advancement as their community has been locked out of the electric transmission grid and have started reverting back to the past technologically. The author paints a believable scenario of the future that I could envision.
The author left an ending that could be taken as (a) the story was complete, or (b) maybe there will be a sequel. I’d be happy either way, but if there is a sequel I’d purchase it in order to see where the story goes next.
I originally picked this up during a Kindle promotion for free vs. its normal price of $2.99 I certainly received more than $2.99 in entertainment value out of this one. If you like a futuristic tale that reads like a thriller, I would recommend this one.
Despite there being a bit of a weird vibe with small US towns being without power whilst third world countries get plenty coming in, this managed to be quite a compelling yarn. I wasn't really blown away by any of the writing, characters or action, but I read to the end and enjoyed.
You people should just read this book yourselves and write your own review on this novel yourself and I really enjoyed reading this book very much so. Shelley MA
I think a lot of people would rate this book 4-stars and I can easily understand why. It's well written and the plot pulls you in and makes you want to know what happens next. There's an enticing quality to the main characters and the dilemma that they find themselves in. I enjoyed reading this book.
However I am rather picky when reading a book and there were a lot of inconsistencies in the book and things that didn't make sense to me. That's why I gave it 3-stars.
I'll mention a few of the issues I had but if you want to read the book, stop here 'cause some of these will reveal plot lines that should remain hidden when you start the book.
**beware of plot spoilers**
The setup of this book is that in the near future, due to concerns about environmental impact, energy generation is shifted to cleaner sources. As a result StuTech, a company that transmits electrical energy wirelessly, gains a near monopoly and that results in many small towns no longer receiving any electricity.
As soon as I started the book my thoughts ran to the "WTF" area. Wireless delivery of electricity, even if it were possible on a large scale, isn't a clean method of electrical generation. It's a method of electrical delivery. In the entire book there's no mention of how the electricity is being generated. A gaping flaw when the premise of the book is that the world is changed due to the need to have cleaner energy.
Does this hurt the flow or readability of the book? Not at all. It's just a logic element that probably won't matter to most people.
The book then goes on to presume that any town that doesn't receive electricity delivered wirelessly would have no other options. Kolbet gives a brief, albeit economically suspect, explanation that local utility companies weren't able to compete and they all sold their copper wire and went out of business. I bet there was a glut of copper on the market that year! Since I grew up in an area where the local college ran the electrical utility I just think people would be able to come up with alternatives if their backs were to the wall.
Even the primary motivation of Luke Kincaid, the protagonist, is a little iffy. Luke's parents were killed in a car accident the day after power delivery ended in their town of Mill Creek, CA. Luke blamed StuTech. Now it's human nature so blame something for events that are beyond our control so maybe Luke would blame StuTech---but it doesn't seem to really be StuTech's fault.
After all, it doesn't seem like StuTech made the car Luke was in hit the semi-truck. His mom was dead on the scene and his father had flat lined before the ambulance got to the hospital then flat lined again as soon as they arrived. The lack of working equipment in the hospital ---apparently they didn't have a generator there--- would seem to be irrelevant.
And we're supposed to believe that two people very much in love with one another wouldn't keep tabs on one another in any way during a year apart? Please!
In any case, these are quibbles with the logic of the book not with the writing itself. The book is engaging and easy to relate to. I'd definitely read it again.
Just the cover alone of "Off The Grid" by Dan Kolbet sparked my interest with that power tower there among the stars. It had sort of an eerie glow behind the tower yet darkness all around. I figured this had to be a story about being cut off from power (by the name and cover picture) and after reading the authors description I found that the book was about much more than I thought it was. It is about murder, revenge, spying, love, and more.
I won't go into a long description of what the story is about but I will say it is about wireless electricity. I thought the characters were well developed in the book. The main character, who is named Luke, I wasn't even sure what company he was really working for. There are so many twists and turns as this story plays out, just when I think I figured him out something else would happen and I was back to not really knowing until the end. Then again, he wasn't the only one as there was another character who I thought was on one side but turns out was on another, plus there is one I still was not sure where she stood other than by her actions toward the end. In other words, don't think the first impressions or motives of all the characters are correct when you first start reading it. They may not be going where you think they are.
I did find some of the story slow in parts but this was mainly for either character building or to 'set up' for another twist in the story. (I also should just tell you that I was sick when I read this so I did put it down between readings which tends to 'lose' something. Maybe if I had read it daily or in one sitting, these slow parts weren't as slow as I think they were but thought it only fair to mention what *I* felt.) But even so, this story did have me wanting to know what happened next.
I am looking at this as a fictional story which is what the author intended, I am not trying to apply this to real life so as long as you don't do that, it is a great story. By this I mean, as I told you it is about wireless electricity and I was not concerned about the effects this 'wireless electricity' had on humans or animals; how it can be transmitted wireless without electrocuting anyone/anything nearby or why those 'off the grid' didn't use wind power or other types of energy not requiring fossil fuels. I just took the story at face value and assumed there was a reason but it wasn't 'vital' to this story so it was left out as to not complicate the story the author intended to tell.
There were some errors I noticed that weren't picked up by the proofreading. Examples of this are; "Luke knew there was much more the he..", "Using the prongs of ring she wore..." (missing the word 'the' in 'Using the prongs of the ring she wore...). There were also some punctuation errors but none of this was so serious that it took away from the story, to me at least.
I thought this was a good story and enjoyed reading it. I especially loved the ending (it gave me great satisfaction) the way it was done. I recommend this book to those who are tired of reading about the zombies and want a fiction, thriller, mystery that is quite different from the norm.
Wireless power revolutionizes the world in many ways; not all good. When StuTech corners the market, other power companies were soon out of business. The use of fossil fuels has finally been replaced with other sources and the wireless transport of electricity makes life good; for a chosen few. In order to transport this electricity stubs, receiving and transporting ports, are needed within a certain perimeter, leaving many tracts uncovered (much like cell phone antennas). The areas not covered by StuTech’s were plunged into the past and life isn’t easy or safe. Luke Kincaid lost his parents soon after the blackout and blames StuTech for their deaths. After attending Stanford and graduating as an electronical engineer and got a position with StuTech. He is asked to commit industrial espionage at MassEnergy, StuTech’s only major competition. This is a little difficult as he is engaged to Rachel Evans, the daughter of Warren Evans the owner and CEO of StuTech. This tale takes the reader on a checkerboard tour of the world, moving back and forth in time as a story of greed, espionage, love and loss. With the possible discovery of the 18th rare earth element sends the missive into another, unexpected direction. A multitude of characters makes it sometimes confusing but once the various personages are figured out, the story takes form and moves the reader along like an autumn leaf in a babbling brook. It is universally recognized that the burning of fossil, carbon based fuels is the chief cause of the green house effect and has to be altered but this story shows what could happen and is realistic food for thought. This story could appeal to a large reading audiences but I found it a little cold and mechanical and could never get lost in the tale.
Started March 01st. 2014. Got this today for free from Amazon (only today), by way of the daily bookbub bargains email. Title and the short blurb about the book made me take it, thinking "as it is free, if it is bad, no money wasted". And I should stop starting more and more books at the same time. A few nice twists, but not enough. For a change a happy-ending, but that was expected by me. Not bad, given that Tesla is one of my favorite Scientists and the idea here is seeded from his work. The characters are very well written and the plot changes in a good way between action (and not too much coincidences), background story and exploring. So why not 5 stars? The story ended just to happy, it would have been more real if one more twist occurred or a main character betrays the heroes or dies or whatever. Highly recommended, fast read with a future that is all to believable.
Not my typical read, but I found this story interesting. The author was abl to provide great detail while still keeping the book fast paced & action packed. There was an obvious knowledge of technology when writing this book that I found was not difficult to understand. There are many characters to follow but you are never lost as to who you are reading. The best thing about this book to me is that this could actually happen! This book was well written & believable, with a dystopian element to it. There were many twists & turns leaving me ith nothing bad to say about it at all. It's not something I would usually read as corporate espionage is just not my cup of tea, but it drug me in and I couldnt put it down~
I enjoyed this book because it was a little different, it kept me guessing, and it was interesting to try to follow what was happening and how it all fit together.
I did not enjoy the ending because the wrap-up seemed simplistic compared to the rest of the action. It's not that it wasn't well written; it was more that the ending explanation was disappointing.
This book is a good read for anyone who likes futuristic (not 100 years ahead, but still futuristic), mystery, exciting, science-based stories.
Intriguing premise. The book is well written, the story moves at a good pace. No more fossil fuel, energy is delivered wirelessly. But now energy is scarce and many small towns are without and have been abandoned. Luke's parents died the night power was first cut off in Mill Creek. He wants revenge and plans for years to achieve his goals. Does he succeed? You will have to read to find out. Recommend reading.
This is a decent enough debut thriller. The action is good, the main character believable and likable and the tension builds well. However, some of the setting elements don't seem fully thought through, and the plot gets a little strained here and there. I reviewed this for the Self Publishing review: http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/b....
What is the mysterious element that has changed the landscape of modern America? Is it worth the millions left with nothing? Small towns left in the dark because it isn't cost effective. At times I felt the author was trying too hard to make this story work. At the end I wasn't satisfied.
Interesting story but very poor editing and the use of words and events the author didn't understand. I would have awarded 3.5 stars if the editing had been adequate.
A good read with plenty of action. However, the author or his editor needs to check unfamiliar facts such as not writing that Harley Davidson motorcycles have two-cycle engines, which are actually four-cycle, two-cylinder engines--a big difference.
I thoroughly enjoyed each twist and turn of this well told adventure. The plot kept me wanting to know more and there was enough secrecy that I didn't have it all worked out before the end.
Enjoyed the premise and some of the details. I felt that the book had a lot in it just to give it a higher page count. If you can get beyond the length, it's a good book.
A quick-moving thriller with a technology backdrop. The plot moved along nicely with enough surprises to keep it tense and interesting, but nothing out of left field that left you wondering what you missed along the way. I had a hard time putting it down once I started.
A decent book that encompasses the environment, corporate greed, corporate espionage, and murder.
Fast paced with ample character development, I think those readers who enjoy thrillers with a little bit of science fiction thrown in will enjoy this novel.
This was a story about how greed can blind people enough to stop at nothing to get what they want. A glimpse into a not so distant future. Made me stop and think.