Reviewed by Frankie Martinez

A powerful story of humanity, nature, and the fight for truth.

In a world where most of humanity has fled to live deep in Earth’s underground, Violet Murphy refuses to leave her family’s farm on the surface. Located in Fulminara, one of two habitable islands left on Earth, the Murphy estate is home to Violet, her horse Firestorm, and the relics of her family’s agricultural research.

Life is peaceful until one day, officers of the government’s Science Bureau arrive to conduct the annual census and invite Violet to visit their facility underground in the capital of Apricus. What is supposed to be a presentation on the Murphy family’s developments in food generation devolves into an unsettling interrogation—one which leaves Violet drugged and imagining the voices of what she believes are trapped animals in the stark hallways of the Bureau, pleading for help.

When Violet returns home and feels an unusually close sense of comfort from Firestorm, she is convinced that the voices she heard were real.

Meanwhile, there are others experiencing a strange connection with animals. Emily Steuben, an Earth preservationist, discovers ducklings at her home for the first time in three years after being led there by other animals’ insistence. Jack Collins, a retail director, is hunting a doe on the surface when he is suddenly struck with the deer’s fear, so much that he leaves and decides to swear off hunting for the rest of his life. Mason Agu, a computer programmer for the government’s Infrastructure Bureau, is spending a quiet evening at home in Apricus, until he gets a strong feeling from his cat that something has happened next door to his elderly, beloved neighbor.

The four strangers come together after responding to Violet’s vague online forum post about a “special connection to animals” and quickly become fast friends. As their bond grows, so do their questions about the government, especially after learning about Violet’s interrogation there.

The organization’s increasingly strange activities—starting with the census and leading to the announcement that they’d be evacuating Aprica permanently for an unknown, habitable land—lead the friends to start an investigation into the Bureau, one that leads them down a dangerous path to the truth.

Imber is about the light and dark in the world, highlighting both the comfort of the bonds between living things, as well as the strength to fight against overwhelming odds.

Mistina’s debut is filled with expansive, dynamic descriptions of nature and humanity. The novel’s quiet opening is moving and immersive—Violet walks through her family’s estate, remembering the day she found a dead hawk, only to find Firestorm peeking through the windows of the greenhouse in search of Violet’s mother after her untimely death.

Mistina is also playful with her portrayal of gestures and movement. Each character interacts with one another in unique ways: Jack can’t keep his eyes off of Violet’s freckles; Mason’s deep voice contains a childlike innocence when he’s around his cat or Firestorm.

Because descriptions are so detailed and plot details are so heavily focused on the government’s secret plans, the pacing of the story can be quite slow. There is something comforting about it, especially in the first parts of the novel that are more focused on worldbuilding and the friendship between Violet, Jack, Emily, and Mason, but it also does not quite match the content in the novel’s latter half with its somewhat shocking violence. A lot of information is jammed into the last half of the novel because of this. While Imber does reach a satisfactory, open-ended conclusion in the larger story about evacuating humanity from Earth, I longed for more important plot threads between the four friends.

But that’s also because I wanted to linger in Mistina’s world for just a little bit longer without the government’s evil plans. While lies, deceit, and the end of the world run underneath the surface of the novel, Imber is a gorgeous portrait of humanity, rich with the warmth between people and their chosen companions, whether they be family, friends, or animals.

Thank you for reading Frankie Martinez’s book review of Imber by Deborah Mistina! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Imber appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Gabriella Harrison

In which an irresistible adventure to an exoplanet transforms into a moving story about the complexity of sisterhood

Lissy and her crew just finished a horrendous mission. Their reputation within the space-salvaging industry is wrecked. So when she and her boyfriend find something with the potential to cleanse their reputation and wipe all their financial woes away, they’re quick to take it. But it’s going to take her sister, an anthropology professor at a prestigious university, to make it happen.

Despite the disaster of their last mission, the crew is eager to get started. Lissy’s sister, Therese, is insistent on following due process. That would help them all in the end since she needs to publish about the discovery, but it doesn’t win her any friends within the crew, especially since she is new and an introvert perceived as a snob.

Once they finally begin, it is immediately obvious that something is very wrong. The religious colony that inhabited the exoplanet before their arrival believed to have left fifty years ago for unknown reasons. The strange thing is that they left all their personal possessions behind. There is no evidence of a massacre. They’re just gone.

Things become even stranger when the rest of the crew finally see what they dub “The Anomaly.” A glowing artifact with an indecipherable origin that captivates everyone who looks at it. While everyone is still figuring out what to do, one of the crew members becomes sick, and things really start to go downhill from there.

The Glass Garden is a mystery-driven science fiction that unfolds over three days. On the first day, the crew arrives on the exoplanet, and The Anomaly is studied. The rest of the crew is introduced through Therese’s keen eyes: handsome Carver, whose main purpose in the crew seems to be to sweet-talk people and maintain peace; Tsieh, a sharp-eyed skeptic and brainiac; and McArdle, the hard-to-please pilot and mechanical whiz of the crew.

On the second day, they split into two teams; one conducting a proper in-depth study of The Anomaly and the other exploring the site where the previous colony stayed and trying to salvage anything of value. By the third day, they’re barely hanging on.

From the beginning, Therese is withdrawn, sitting at a corner of the ship’s galley, sipping coffee and observing her new crew members while remembering times when she has felt left out: “…she had flashes of the first day of sophomore year, sitting in the cafeteria of a new high school knowing absolutely nobody, hoping someone would sit with her, terrified that they would.”

With Therese, author Jessica Lévai aptly captures how easy it is to misunderstand an introvert who doesn’t know how to join a conversation with strangers. Balancing out Therese’s perspective is the equally nerdy Tsieh, who observes her reclusiveness as creepy: “She was probably listening, but not contributing, which was spooky as hell.”

Then Lissy enters, “splashing into the pond with all the subtlety of a rock thrown by a kindergartner.” Lissy is her younger, more vibrant, and daring sister. As the story progresses, the sibling rivalry and her resentment toward Therese for their mom’s preferential treatment toward her and repeated disregard of the career of a space salvager are evident. During one of their arguments, she remarks, “You never stand up for me when Mom tells me to get a real job or go back to school. It’s obvious you think I’m beneath you.” Amid the chaos of their mission, interactions such as this ground them in their humanity—a quiet reminder that beneath all the tension, they’re still just people. Unfortunately, Lissy’s sentiments rub off on the rest of the crew, and Therese must prove herself to belong.

The alien cave system of the exoplanet is brought to life through tactile, sensory detail, especially when the characters peel off their masks and interact physically with The Anomaly. These artistic details create an immersive and emotionally evocative atmosphere that is both magical and menacing, evoking awe and dread in equal measure. For instance:

“One wall of the cavern was lit as if from behind, and upon it were…images. Like a stained glass window in an abandoned cathedral…the images impressed on it reminded her of Tiffany lamps at the art museum, but more free, more alive. These were the flowers that watched martyrs put to death and grew exuberantly, mockingly, from their remains.”

Despite its emotional resonance, The Glass Garden leaves a few questions unresolved. While the ambiguity surrounding the sick crewmate is intentional, it doesn’t exactly provide closure, and readers may find this frustrating. The lack of psychological buildup, such as Therese and Lissy’s final decision concerning The Anomaly, can make some character decisions feel sudden, but in the novella form, these are likely to save space and allow for the reader to ponder the truth in the silence.

Jessica Lévai’s The Glass Garden is a surreal and thrilling science fiction novella that prompts you to wonder what truly exists beyond Earth, and it succeeds greatly in balancing introspection and action. Therese’s archaeological mindset provides a steady rhythm of analysis and reflection, while the unfolding mystery of The Anomaly keeps the tension alive.

Thank you for reading Gabriella Harrison’s book review of The Glass Garden: A Novella by Jessica Lévai! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: The Glass Garden appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Victoria Lilly

A throng of terror, loss, doubt, and reckoning with trauma swirls together in a collage of wondrous worlds.

Trina Bell is on the run. Strange human-like shadows chase her across towns and fields. But their nightmarish presence pales in strangeness compared to what happens to her with each new day. The world is changing.

The rough outline might stay similar, but details change, and no one recalls her presence from the previous cycle. No one, that is, until Trina meets an old librarian by the name of Colin. He, too, changes with the turnings, but he remains a librarian, and he remembers Trina even as days and worlds pass. This oddity unsettles Trina, and she latches onto Colin as a life buoy. 

Concerned for Trina—bewildered, young, alone in the world, and on the run from shadows—Colin takes her to a sanctuary for dispossessed girls. At first Trina believes she has finally found a safe harbor, someplace to make sense of what has been happening to her.

Then she meets the asylum’s resident physician, Dr. Sweets, and what he tells her disorients Trina even more than the turnings of the world have done: that she is the cause of them. From that point on, Trina is on an ever more desperate run for her life; from the shadows, the accelerating crumbling of each successive world, and Dr. Sweets himself. Yet the more she runs, the more she comes to realize that her pursuers might not just be behind her, but also within.

While the premise of multiple universes is hardly new in popular culture, success of certain Marvel films and, in 2022, Everything Everywhere All at Once has certainly increased the concept’s popularity and visibility. To put a fresh and compelling spin on it is, therefore, no small feat. I am happy to say that Christopher Hawkins has achieved such a feat with this book.

Jumping from small-town flyover-country America, to a Victorianesque metropolis, to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and more, I Contain Multitudes contains quite a few worlds. Certain motifs connect each of them into a cycle. The library, where Colin works. The asylum for dispossessed women. The ensemble of recurring characters, from the kind and helpful Edie, to the increasingly violent and erratic Dr. Sweets.

Hawkins’s seamless and simple prose immerses the reader in every successive world so thoroughly, I wished each episode within the novel was a book in its own right. The cast and the constant locations and motifs not only give cohesion to the multiverse storyline, but attachment to them are the bricks upon which the structure of heightening tensions and stakes solidly rests.

At the center of the story, Trina begins as a relatively characterless figure. We know she is on the run, that she doesn’t dwell much on the reasons behind her world changing, and that she avoids attaching herself to people. The latter is understandable, since no one remembers her the next day anyway, but this is already a clue as to the true demons haunting Trina, and why she is the person that she is. Her latching first onto Colin and then the gentle asylum manager Edie simmers with tension, as Trina struggles to bring herself to open up, be vulnerable, and try to face a forgotten past.

“And she really did feel like it might be okay. Okay the way it hadn’t been in months. There was something so trustworthy in Edie’s smile, in the gentle way she held out her hand toward the wide, curving staircase at the end of the lobby, that Trina might have been happy to follow her anywhere.”

If there is one flaw to I Contain Multitudes—and it is not a major one—it is that the fast-paced psychological thriller story limits the extent to which the characters and the worlds are developed. There is enough of each world to intrigue and want to explore it, but ultimately that isn’t the point.

This is all, of course, part of the point of the story, these shortcomings logical within the central thematic thrust. Trina’s emotional arc, her relationships with the likes of Colin and Dr. Sweets, and the particulars of the worlds she visits are neatly tied together. 

The novel’s theme might be relatively simple, but as my dad would say, “simple is beautiful.” The emotional core, the punch of the story, makes for an affecting read. Lovers of drama will appreciate the final resolution, and thriller fans get more than their money’s worth from the journey to the said ending. The heroine escapes into neither fantasy nor oblivion, but bravely begins the world anew.

Thank you for reading Victoria Lilly’s book review of I Contain Multitudes by Christopher Hawkins! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: I Contain Multitudes by Christopher Hawkins appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Chelsey Tucker | Content warnings: attempted suicide

A provocative and peculiar story that examines technological dependency in a powerful near future

Quentin Wagner is raised offline, an oddity compared to the lives of his fellow Gen Alphas. But animosity, anxiety, and depression still found him. After a failed suicide attempt, he posts a lengthy diatribe on a social media platform, TrueSwitch, about how, “Our parents, the Millennials, became addicted to that digital world, so they felt it was only natural to pass that addiction on to their kids. But we’re the only ones paying that debt.” 

Even though Quentin is immediately disgusted at his impulsive word vomit and subsequently deletes the app, his post takes off and is the basis of the tumultuous Unplug Movement. He has sparked a movement that will never truly be his.

After #Unplug explodes, Amphibian “Phibs” Cantell tracks down Quentin—a person with basically no digital footprint—with the pure purpose of meeting his idol and partaking in Unplug. Phibs begins to orchestrate the meeting of various Boston College students in order for Quentin to speak and spread the philosophy.

Jax Halsteder is an intense 19 year old who is next to speak at the first meeting after Quentin. He talks “about coding and how he once saw it as valuable to society, only to realize how wrong he was thanks to Quentin’s post.” He gave up his full-ride scholarship to MIT because he was so moved by a social media post. Millions of people will join suit in shunning the internet, some even believing in no physical documentation at all. Of course, there is pushback that will eventually cause Jax and Quentin to reach their boiling point.

Unplugged is a strange, impossible to put down novella that is told mostly in the future tense. Zaddy, one of Quentin’s fathers, is the narrator, painting the picture of his little boy’s life after fretting over whether he will successfully raise him right. “And I’ll tell Quentin this: if he feels isolated or weird now, know that at least he’s being raised right. That will only work out for him in the end.” 

The utilization of the future tense allows for a unique way to audit the present day, as there are people and events within the story that mirror current politicians or cultural trends. The ways in which these characters reflect our own world give an immersive feel to the novel—a worldwe can see ourselves in.

The main topic for this discussion remains the anxiety and depression caused by overstimulation due to excessive technology use. Arriving in our admittedly chaotic world, this book allows us to put an essential distance between ourselves and reality. The fictional space gives room to process the thoughts and emotions that may feel overwhelming otherwise—a successful endeavor on author David Schulze’s part. 

I’d recommend this book primarily for a mature adult audience, particularly because of its representation of suicide and other heavy topics. Unplugged invokes deep thought in a powerful dystopian world. While it might feel heavy, it leaves us with hope for the future.

Thank you for reading Chelsey Tucker’s book review of Unplugged by David Schulze! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Unplugged by David Schulze appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen

An epic post-apocalyptic fantasy that pits man against gods in an age-old battle for the survival of humanity’s very soul

When Commander Ares Augustus discovers that a technologically devastating Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is set to hit his planet, he knows that he only has hours to act. Protecting his men and their families is his first priority, and he knows that the army will take measures that will prove disastrous. But Ares intends to help as many of his people survive as possible. 

The first night after the EMP, Konaki attack. These creatures, long thought only to inhabit storybooks, are vicious, tearing through the military’s protective gear with ease. Now, Ares must make the long and difficult journey to Kydonia, a place where they may be safe.

Unbeknownst to him, the battle humanity has been plunged into goes far deeper than merely withstanding the end of advanced technology. The gods themselves are watching this disaster play out. More than that, they are calling forth players to spin the game in their favor. If humanity has a chance to survive, two heroes—both sworn enemies—will need to step forward and risk everything to protect what is left of the world.

Hoplite Ridge is a dystopian sci-fi fantasy where multiple stories converge; different characters navigate different dilemmas in the same post-apocalyptic world. This novel has all the elements of an epic tale. The characters are larger than life monoliths in stature, personality, and fighting prowess. They have the essence of the gods they are named for—beings whose focus is on achieving their tasks in any way they can.

The set-up for this novel is quite gripping. From the outset, we’re introduced to a god who wants to destroy humanity. Once we drop into the human world, there’s the excitement of preparing to survive a catastrophic event. Even before the monsters show up, the atmosphere is tense. Once night falls and the Konaki arrive, this amps up tenfold. As the novel progresses and the situation becomes more dire, the smothering, strained mood only gets heavier.

While the premise of Hoplite Ridge is unique, it draws heavily on aspects of human culture, history, and philosophy. Mythological themes and motifs permeate these pages. All major characters share their names with gods or beings from a diverse range of mythological sources. There is also a good deal of history woven into the framework of Hoplite Ridge. Some of these things are clever little nods to how the story will play out, others help unpack the philosophical questions of what humanity owes to each other. Through the novel, the themes of compassion, duty, and sacrifice appear.

Hoplite Ridge can be confusing and difficult to follow. Aside from being told in a purposefully disjointed way, jumping from fights between the god to the matters of men, vital information is frequently left out. Description is sparse and makes piecing together scenes or timelines challenging. We leave certain characters behind for long swathes of time, and by the time they show up on page again, we’ve forgotten who they are and what their goals were. 

Hoplite Ridge has the makings of an epic mythological tale. It pits men against brutal gods, has characters who stand for ideals far greater than themselves, and has an overwhelming feeling of allegory to the situations that rise in our lives. Anyone who devours mythology will likely find this a fascinating read. 

Thank you for reading Joelene Pynnonen’s book review of Hoplite Ridge by Sean Patrick Sayers! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Hoplite Ridge appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen

A near-future sci-fi adventure that pits AI and technological warfare against humanity

Harrison Randolph, former founder of the world’s largest AI development firm who is now an advocate for personal privacy laws, is attacked by the Vice-President of the United States at a Senate committee hearing. When her attempt to kill him fails, she commits suicide. 

As shocking as that is, he’s even more stunned when the Secret Service seems to target him as the offender. Before he can be detained, a teenage girl with surprising command of the situation creates an escape route for him. Within hours, he and his wife, former Marine Aviator Shannon Parks, are branded terrorist assassins and top the most wanted lists of every law enforcement agency in the country.

Hundreds of miles away in Florida, Shannon Parks is catching up with an old family friend when the bulletin for her arrest goes out. Unable to establish consistent communication with Harrison, her only option is to find a safe place to hide and hope that he does too. But an old enemy is after her, and already several steps ahead. 

Before long, she will be fighting a biological weapon the likes of which the world has never seen, one that controls its victims from within. Without Harrison by her side, she will need all her skills to face this threat.

The Whispering Chamber is the second novel in the Parks/Randolph series. It opens three years after the first novel, D.I.T.T.O., ends. While the characters and events of the first novel are vital to this one, enough backstory and context is built in that Whispering Chamber can be read as a stand-alone. It is a near-future political sci-fi, told from multiple perspectives. 

There are some hefty social and moral implications in the subject matters Whispering Chamber explores. The discussion of how far technology should go and who should be in charge of it sits central. Further than that, there are discussions on who technology actually benefits, the people or the corporations. Exploitation of the vulnerable and the inability to lock certain boxes that are opened also feature. There is a great deal of thought and nuance built into the logistics of advanced technology in this increasingly desensitized world. Many of the concerns touched on in Whispering Chamber feature in our own discussions, but the repercussions in the novel are more devastating.

Whispering Chamber does a superb job of building a menacing threat to the two protagonists, but it doesn’t always maintain its high stakes. I love when antagonists are forced to adjust—this novel follows that trajectory well—but this time, it feels like the heroes have less to fight against.

The AI component of this novelistruly fascinating. Rather than treating it as an unassailable threat or as an indisputable aid as most novels will do, Whispering Chamber takes the more nuanced path of suggesting it could go either way. There’s the definitive sense that, like a lot of advancements, the technology here was designed to benefit humans before being horrendously mishandled. Having the viewpoints of the AI be part of the narrative offers a unique and interesting perspective on how AI functions in the world. It’s also a cute, often funny look at the disconnect between human brain and machine.

In the end, The Whispering Chamber is excellent—a well-worthy follow-up to D.I.T.T.O. It advances the characters, builds on the nuanced themes of AI, and introduces an even more terrifying antagonist. The threat from this novel is resolved in a satisfying way, but the ending is left open and intriguing for the next installment.

Thank you for reading Joelene Pynnonen’s book review of The Whispering Chamber by Chet Meisner! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: The Whispering Chamber appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Frankie Martinez

A compelling, classic-feeling time travel novel with intriguing politics, a secret spy, and waking up 18 again

In the year 2020, an unnamed man living in Wonder Lake, Illinois undergoes a strange phenomenon. After a completely normal day of work, chatting with his girlfriend Leigh, and caring for his dog, the man goes to sleep. But when he wakes up, he knows that something is wrong even without opening his eyes. 

When he does, he sees his brother Joseph asleep in a twin bed across from him, though he hasn’t shared a room with his brother since high school. As the strange feeling increases, the man notices other changes; his tattoos are gone, and he finds a silver flip phone by his bedside instead of a smart phone. When he gets out of bed, he finds his 1995 Pontiac Gran Am sitting in the driveway. This is when he realizes he’s back in high school: “Jesus fuck.”With absolutely no idea what is happening to him, the man starts his own investigation into the reason why his 32-year-old consciousness has traveled back in time, hoping that backtracking to his future home will lead to answers. 

Meanwhile, in the basement of a normal office building in 2020, security guard and glorified equipment manager Javier Del Carmen of Strategic Anomaly Observation Control notices a blinking orange light on the machines he is supposed to be watching over. These machines, which are supposed to monitor for anomalies in time and space as part of a research group called Project Outrigger, have detected an anomaly—the first and only time-space anomaly since the division’s founding in 1990. 

The team at Project Outrigger scramble to observe the anomaly and figure out how it happened, while legacy researcher H.S. Baumann conspires behind the scenes to get his hands on the technology that did the job. 

A story told between multiple perspectives and periods of time, Travel is a sci-fi thriller about a man trying desperately to get back to his own time period, all while his fate rests in the hands of an organization that has become entangled in politics and potential conspiracy, of which he has no part. 

This classic sci-fi premise starts with an en-medias res beginning, mysterious gadgets with blinking lights and laser beams, and secret basement laboratories, but the interpersonal dynamics within the scientists at Project Outrigger give the novel its most compelling edge. 

While multiple perspectives appear in the sections that focus on Project Outrigger’s activities in 2020, Javier’s perspective dominates most of these sections. While the Outrigger team argue about what to do with the time machine they’ve discovered, Javier reveals a secret background that results in some seriously mysterious intrigue and fun action sequences in the latter half of the novel. Javier is also the only person who seems to have a bit of humanity in him, showing concern for the unnamed man who was sent back in time by watching over him and feeding his dog. Baumann’s sections are also especially interesting with their history of time travel research.

The other half of the novel is focused on the first-person perspective of the unnamed narrator. These scenes are especially cinematic in their vivid detail and high emotion, but some of that narrator’s characterization leaves some to be desired. His story is highly focused on the present problem of trying to get back to his own timeline, resulting in a narrative that seems to leave little room for agency or difficult choices that would give more hints to who he is as a person.

Travel introduces many mysteries; a teacher lost in the past, a spy, and the secrets of time travel hidden in a strange machine that only one person seems to understand. After finishing, one thing is clear: If answers can be found, it can only be done with the passage of time. 

Thank you for reading Frankie Martinez’s book review of Travel (Project Outrigger) by Kevin Rowlett! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Travel by Kevin Rowlett appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Peter Hassebroek

A surprising speculative thriller about an artificial intelligence innovation promising digital immortality

Artificial intelligence (AI), robot security guards, self-driving cars, and other functional innovations in their infancy today have become ubiquitous in a Near Future year (aka 20NF). They’ve reduced employment to about sixty percent, most of those part time. The other roughly unemployed forty percent rely on Universal Basic Income, which is calibrated to a concept called The Living Year. It’s enough to eke out a comfortable existence for these Subtirees, a denigrated social class. 

Then there’s Stu Reigns, a freelance AI programmer / entrepreneur living in the San Diego area. He has projects for which he hopes to gain funding from Gwendolyn Graham, a wealthy old-fashioned southern belle ready to invest. 

However, Gwendolyn’s more interested in Roxy Zhang’s offering, Vekhuman. Roxy is Stu’s ex-girlfriend. She’s developed a digital product enabling immortality by infinitely preserving its users’ wills, albeit in a non-somatic, non-corporeal sense. Which raises obvious moral and philosophical concerns, as well as marketing ones:

“Was the absence of pleasure a definition of pain? And vice versa? If so, what’s the lack of both? How could a purely sentient being, even given a human brain’s entire memory of a fully lived life, continue to “feel” if their brand-new existence was devoid of all new feelings?”

Gwendolyn and Roxy must contend with dying billionaire and indicted public bad guy, Chuck Rosti, as well as Pyotr, a ruthless Russian mobster. Each wants first dibs on Vekhuman and, like Gwendolyn, their interests are not limited to commercial gain. Each party is willing to do just about anything to gain control of an innovation that is like a MacGuffin, except with a distinct functional value.

Stu becomes involved in the Vekhuman tugs-of-war when Chuck Rosti recruits him to become a mole in Roxy’s organization. Their past connection gets him the job, but it becomes awkward when old feelings between the former couple surface. Stu’s current girlfriend, Maria, a social justice warrior whose current cause happens to be anti-immortality, isn’t happy about it. Then she becomes entangled in the intrigues when Pyotr takes on her loan shark debts.

The multi-tiered conflicts and betrayals blossom into a thrilling story that delivers on its promise of un-guessable twists. This is enhanced by a writing style that’s screenplay-like with its omniscient, conversational narrator who uses many present-day cultural references as metaphors to describe action.

Aside from the main narrative, the book encompasses “bonus material,” a series of topical excerpts, articles, and essays of background information, presented after the main narrative ends like an appendix.

In a way it’s like riding a limited access highway with optional exits or detours “for those feeling nerdy” and wishing to go beyond the brief, inline Too Long; Didn’t Read descriptions. For instance, to learn how the universality of SocialMui (Social Media User Interface) came about:

“TL;DR — SocialMui gave users total control of their feeds. They could layout and prioritize whichever posts they wanted according to keywords and favorite sources. Social media companies could no longer optimize user engagement by maximizing outrage.”

The fuller description is far more extensive, as are others that cover sociological, political, and technological areas, including the aforementioned Subtirees and Living Year. Other pieces explore individual characters and their experiences or beliefs. As with the current story, they are satirical but nevertheless provide depth to the main narrative.

The opportunities for digression end after about two-thirds when, to extend the earlier metaphor, it’s all express, the speed limit soars, and the speculative aspects yield to pure thriller. It’s a sustained series of unexpected turns of events, startling surprises, and humor, as each party goes for broke.

Immortality Bytes is a fun, fast-paced novel with a satirical perspective projecting a credible future.

Thank you for reading Peter Hassebroek’s book review of Immortality Bytes by Daniel Lawrence Abrams! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Immortality Bytes appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

A moving human story in a brutal future where a soldier must fight against instinct to get revenge in the war with the aliens

Soldiers and civilians are living in the aftermath of the Martian invasion as written in H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds inthis sequel by Eric Goebelbecker. 

Clouds In the Future is about the kind of life that’s possible when the dust settles and humans move past the survivalist instinct and begin sinking back into their natural inclinations for greed, rage, compassion, or kindness, depending on their nature. In the foreword, author Eric Goebelbecker raises these questions, which this novel explores at length: “What happened after the attack? What did humanity do with the technology the Martians left behind?”

Clouds In the Future explores these questions from the perspective of Christian, a soldier who is a perfect shot and excellent at the examination of greed, violence, and motives for attack. He’s a valuable asset out in the field, but he’s beginning to question whether that’s all he is—and all he wants to be. 

In his experience witnessing both the vicious, calculated kill-or-die military and the genuine, almost shocking gentleness and kindness from grateful civilians, something is opening up—like a crack of light streaming through his chest—that he can’t ignore, and it keeps distracting him in the heat of a tactical mission.

At the start of this book, we witness a horrible attack, assumed to be the Martians because of the tech used to kill, but as Christian and his team ask around, they learn it may be worse than that: It looks like humans are using Martian tech to enact mass murder—possibly to earn favor with the Martians and save themselves in a future attack. The brutal, calculated cruelty of this attack inspires a rage in Christian that the soldier within him would channel into precise headshots and act-first, talk-later acts of   vengeance; thoughts like “These butchers were using Martian tech on civilians and belonged in Hell.” 

But as the information they are gathering gets more complicated, and it’s clear that someone they know and trust is being duplicitous and killing their own on behalf of the aliens, he and his team must second-guess their impulses and instincts that kept them alive for the last few years.

In between the mystery and the discussions about other soldiers’ motivation to “profit from the invasion” by being “smart enough to pull it off by keeping the aliens happy,” this turns out to be a quieter, more intimate book than the first in the series. We spend more time on connecting with Christian’s feelings and conflicted thoughts. I loved the moments of introspection when Christian is trying on different versions of himself in each new scenario. It feels true to the experience of wrestling with a big, life-changing decision that would alter everyone’s perception of me and unsettle my understanding of myself but still feels like something you have to do. 

As the soldiers around him discuss the ongoing murders and dissect the intel from villages that have been ravaged, we hear Christian’s heart racing and breath picking up as he overthinks and imagines different scenarios: How would this soldier act if I did this, not that? How would the military react to me leaving? Would this feel uncomfortable or freeing? Would I regret this decision or be proud of myself? 

“Emil hadn’t killed anyone. Did that make him less of a soldier than Christian? Or a better man?” We really understand the feeling of coming up against something insurmountable when Christian confronts his peers, enemies, and friends with the questions he’s wrestling with: “Are those my only choices? Kill them or join them? I want people to be safe. Does that mean the Martians have to die? I hope not, because I’m not sure we can kill them all.”

Christian wrestles with his sense of justice and his years of experience enactingjustice with a gun in a way that feels so true and human. There are scenes where, even as he’s thinking about his potential civilian life without violence and guns, we still get flashes of his instinct to kill—when it feels urgent and fair to him, and we watch how easily he can slide into his super-sniper role when his brain clicks or snaps into act now mode. 

Goebelbecker’s writing is fresh and fun and thrives in the moments where Christian catches himself acting on something he promised he wouldn’t do anymore. Christian is wise and brilliant and willing to admit when he doesn’t know the best or right thing to do in a situation. It’s admirable to consider such a life change—leaving the army, relinquishing his leadership role in the field with his soldiers he’s spent years with.

I struggled occasionally in getting invested in the background mystery and scenes about the general state of the world, but I remained invested emotionally in where   Christian’s head is at the whole way through. It ‘s equally satisfying to read his action-packed sniper moments as scenes where he decides not to act like a soldier and instead be the man that civilian kids in a new town sees him as. 

Christian has a lot of disdain for the church and bitterness toward anything to do with them, and he makes it well known right from the start. When we learn the origin of his hate, which is rooted in a heartbreaking, devastating experience with the church as a child, we immediately understand. It’s such a radicalizing, rage-fueling moment that it feels like, by Goebelbecker telling us what happened he’s passing the torch to us to carry this fire of anger on Christian’s behalf, to remember the cruelty even if he decides to be a more forgiving, kinder human after all. 

Patriotism and nationalism knock against humankind’s battle against the aliens in such a fascinating way in this book. Even in urgent moments of attack, when Christian tries to warn people in immediate danger, he is dismissed as an enemy. Christian understands this and doesn’t judge them for it, only tries to explain himself further, to show them the urgency of the situation in their lives. Endearingly, he holds no frustration or judgment against them; he simply wants to help where he can, telling us that “Clearly, the war the Martians had interrupted—the one between Germany and the rest of Europe—had touched [this person] in one way or another.”

The action and adventure of Clouds in the Future never stops. Of course, we have moments of relaxation and contemplation, times when the characters must refuel for the journey ahead or pause to discuss the best way forward, but even when this story reaches a point where another novel might wrap things up, Eric Goebelbecker switches up the pace in a way that feels like we are climbing onto a horse and setting off for another adventure—an exciting prospect looking forward! 

I felt so emotional and proud of Christian for his willingness to change his life and his bravery to actually follow through. I couldn’t have put the book down if I needed to, because I wanted to be sure things worked out for him. I wanted so badly for the soldier to have the life he wanted and to see his acts as heroic—his kindness to a child he just met as life-changing as his killing of an enemy—and I love that the author gave him that gift.

Of note, there are some descriptions that could bring up images of the Holocaust in this book: Bodies piled into “macabre mounds” and killed en-masse with Martian heat rays that set them alight, as well as using gas, which Christian describes as “the most humane option” in that situation. There’s xenophobia in casual conversation with some people they meet along the way: “Who cares about feeding foreigners? We should be home, protecting the fatherland.” (I enjoyed Christian’s responses to these people, who—like most xenophobes—frankly don’t see how ridiculous they’re being). We also read about a killed man who was left on display, a suicide, and implications of a horse being put down.

Filled with action and ambushes, entrenched in one soldier’s thoughtful consideration of treachery, Clouds in the Future is perfect for fans of stories about assassins who want out but must complete one more mission to do so, like the Netflix series Black Doves. It might behard, but Christian has been resisting against enemy attacks and complex, hostile situations for long enough that sinking into a life worth living—and fighting for his right to enjoy it—is worth the struggle. This is a deeply satisfying read.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of Clouds in the Future by Eric Goebelbecker! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Clouds in the Future (The Great War of the Worlds) appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Warren Maxwell

A compelling epic about good, evil, and the insanities of modern life

“And so, it finally came. The day that everyone had dreaded for so long. The day when the world was finally going to come to an end.”

As Apocalypse opens, problems on Earth are mounting: Famines are ravaging Africa, water levels are rising and flooding the world’s most famous cities, deadly viruses are spreading globally, pollution is out of control, and pests are destroying precious crops. All this, as it turns out, is part of the plan of “Heaven’s original rock star,” Armando Seytan, who is still raging against a God no less egotistical, paternalistic, and arrogant than himself. 

Having marshaled a band of sinister humans as well as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Antichrist himself (who’s been promised the White House), Seytan is set on proving his power once and for all by destroying the world. 

“‘You’re going to go to Hell!’ said the man.

‘Believe me,’ said Gabe. ‘I’ve already been there. It’s not what you think.’

‘You think you’re funny,’ said the man.

‘I know I’m funny,” said Gabe.’”

All that stands between Seytan and the end of existence is a motley group of angels—Gabriel Angelu, a provocative standup comedian/angel, Raphael Malek, an infectious disease expert/angel, and Michael Angelos, a career soldier/angel who may or may not share ancestry with Alexander the Great—and their mortal compatriots that include zoologists, scientists obsessed with immortality, and the creator of the “first fully conscious, self-aware, sentient, artificial intelligence.” 

“‘But people need heroes,’ said Boz. ‘They need fantasy.’

‘And so, you’d choose fantasy over reality?’ said Rachel.

‘Every day and twice on Sunday,’ said Boz.”

This chaotic group swerves from pessimistic denunciations of God to cinematic battles with the forces of Seytan, not so much defending Earth as attesting to the beauty of humanity, flaws and all. They mock one another, stumble into successes and failures, make detours to Venice to get cannoli, and find endless room for humor and levity. 

Much of this humor is inherent to the writing itself. The book is written with an irreverent voice that makes room to mock vaccine skepticism, Donald Trump, and a host of other contemporary hot button issues. As the book opens, a mother decides to secretly enlist an unconscionably expensive human-like AI program in order to ween her son off online porn. Such exaggerated, almost surreally comic setups are part and parcel of Apocalypse’s narrative style.

“Byoki Shikken was a very special individual. He knew that he was Jesus Christ. And once he had grasped this fundamental truth, he decided to make it his mission in life to take upon himself all of the sins of the world.”

In its inventiveness and willingness to push boundaries, the broad strokes of the novel’s madcap universe are hilarious and exhilarating. However, at the more nuanced level of sentences and structuring, the book sometimes falls short. The large cast of characters is unevenly realized and makes the book feel sprawling. Themes and ideas are tossed in without being fully developed sometimes, and in rare instances, the provocative style stumbles into poor taste, particularly when poking fun at the rise of chronic obesity and weight loss treatments. 

Some repetitive introductions and the tendency for long, expositional dialogues dampen the flurry of ideas and jokes that are packed into Apocalypse. That said, the quixotic, thoroughly unique take on religion, modern life, and human existence makes for a compelling reading experience.

A madcap battle for the future of humanity and the Earth itself, Apocalypse gathers the absurdities of modern life and the enduring beauty of human existence into one crazy story of angels, demons, and the mortals who follow them.

Thank you for reading Warren Maxwell’s book review of Apocalypse by James A. Devita! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Apocalypse by James A. DeVita appeared first on Independent Book Review.