If you are a lover of thrillers, especially thrillers involving forensics, medicine or technology and you like it spiced up with a bit of science, then this book review blog is for you.
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The focus of my blog is to review book series and not individual novels. But writers are going to continue writing novels within a series even after I have done my review, so I plan on reviewing the individual novels as they come into circulation. Annelie Wendeberg has recently added book #4, Vow, to the 1/2986...
The focus of my blog is to review book series and not individual novels. But writers are going to continue writing novels within a series even after I have done my review, so I plan on reviewing the individual novels as they come into circulation. Annelie Wendeberg has recently added book #4, Vow, to the 1/2986 series.
If you like really tough female characters then you will love Mickaela (Micka) Capra as she is a survivalist and a warrior. Throughout this series, Micka has had to endure being raped, tortured, forced into marriage, had her newborn child murdered, and in this latest addition to the series, resort to cannibalism to avoid starving to death.
The series is entitled 1/2986, which is a ratio that references the number of people that have survived after the effects of climate change, disease, and war have taken its toll on humanity. The human population is divided into three factions; the Sequencers who are a group of scientist, engineers, and historians that are trying to save what is left of humanity, The Brother and Sisters of the Apocalypse (BSA) who believe they are chosen by God to bring on the apocalypse foretold in the Bible, and the rest are isolated tribes that do what they need to do in order to survive. Micka was a member of a tribal group before she was recruited to work with the Sequencers only to eventually be captured by the BSA. During her tenure at the BSA, she finds out that she is actually the daughter of a prominent figure in the BSA, Eric Vandemeer. Vandemeer had formally been a Sequencer but converted to the BSA and has knowledge on how to bring down the Sequencers. Micka manages a dramatic escape from the BSA and ultimately brings down what is left of the world’s satellite system which Vandemeer had planned to use to destroy the Sequencers and ultimately mankind. Vow begins shortly after this took place and Micka is trapped in a barren frigid wasteland with the love of her life, Katvar, and the only means of escape is a damaged airplane that must be repaired before her and Katvar succumb to the elements. Destroying the satellite system makes her a wanted person by both the Sequencers and the BSA and avoiding them will be difficult if not impossible, but Micka is not about to give up.
This is an excellent but brutal series and not for the faint at heart and Vow doesn’t disappoint. Technically this could be read as a standalone but I strongly suggest reading the whole series.
To learn more about the series check outthe1/2986 series.
The focus of my blog is to review book series and not individual novels. But writers are going to continue writing novels within a series even after I have done my review, so I plan on reviewing the individual novels as they come into circulation. Eliot Peper has recently added book #2, Borderless, to the Analog...
The focus of my blog is to review book series and not individual novels. But writers are going to continue writing novels within a series even after I have done my review, so I plan on reviewing the individual novels as they come into circulation. Eliot Peper has recently added book #2, Borderless, to the Analog series.
When I was a little girl my first exposure to TV was in black and white, then one day my dad brought home a color TV. WOW, I thought it was the greatest thing on Earth. When cell phones came out, I thought I would never need one, but then I finally got one I wondered how I got by without it. We are in the era of a technological revolution and when the latest new technology comes out, there are plenty of people who are the first in line to get it. With such a demand and the prize potentially being in the billions of dollars, entrepreneurs are eager to get the latest technology on the market even without taking into consideration the consequences.
When Henry Ford churned out the first model T for the masses, he never considered that the automobile would be instrumental in changing the world’s climate. When Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004 and along with Twitter’s release in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, neither one of them considered that their creation would contribute to meddling in the US election process. Robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology are some of the emerging technologies that could have catastrophic effect on the human race if not kept in check. But with increasing demand, profitable competition, and lack of government oversight, keeping these technologies under control will be difficult if not impossible.
This brings me to Eliot Peper’s latest addition to his Analog series, Borderless, which looks at the emerging technology of brain-computer interface, specifically neural connection with the internet. We are already addicted to the internet, and being connected 24 hours a day would leave us 100% dependent. In his first book of the series, Bandwidth, Peper delves into how this technology could be used to manipulate an individual on a grand scale. In Borderless, Peper reflects on how this technology could influence the governments of the world and the danger of creating a new world order.
Peper’s Borderless stars a delightful protagonist, an ex-CIA spy known as Diana, who unveils a government plot to take over the ‘feed’. Because of her knowledge on information only known by her, the burden of stopping this takeover is left to her. Time is of the essence which lends to a white knuckle escapade to save her lover and to protect the feed.
I applaud authors like Eliot Peper for bringing up topics about the latest and emerging technologies and giving us readers a glimpse of their potential dangerous side in such an entertaining yet thought provoking way. I give Eliot Peper a standing ovation for Borderless.
I would like to thank the author for my advance reader copy of Borderless.
To learn more about the series check outtheAnalogseries.
Just to give you an update on the release dates for the newest additions to the series that I have reviewed. Soon to be Released Casey Hill – Fallout Expected Release Date 12/10/18 A Reilly Steel Novel Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child – Verses for the Dead Expected Release Date 12/31/18 A Pendergast Novel After...
Just to give you an update on the release dates for the newest additions to the series that I have reviewed.
After an overhaul of leadership at the FBI’s New York field office, A. X. L. Pendergast is abruptly forced to accept an unthinkable condition of continued employment: the famously rogue agent must now work with a partner.
Pendergast and his new teammate, junior agent Coldmoon, are assigned to Miami Beach, where a rash of killings by a bloodthirsty psychopath are distinguished by a confounding M.O.: cutting out the hearts of his victims and leaving them-along with cryptic handwritten letters-at local gravestones, unconnected save in one bizarre way: all belonged to women who committed suicide.
But the seeming lack of connection between the old suicides and the new murders is soon the least of Pendergast’s worries. Because as he digs deeper, he realizes the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: a conspiracy of death that reaches back decades.
For Ella Patel, sharing her mind with the alien, Io, has been tough, but they’re beginning to trust each other. Of course, it’s not just Io she’s dealing with, but the whole of the alien Prophus high command, and the rest of her new team. Given time, some of them might even be friends… But their enemies, the Genjix, are a constant threat, and it looks like the Prophus may have seriously underestimated them. Someone should really do something about that – but are Ella and Io the right agents for the job?
Arriving home on Christmas Eve, Commander Gray Pierce discovers his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend’s wife, Kat, unconscious on the kitchen floor. With no shred of evidence to follow, his one hope to find the woman he loves and his unborn child is Kat, the only witness to what happened. But the injured woman is in a semi-comatose state and cannot speak—until a brilliant neurologist offers a radical approach to “unlock” her mind long enough to ask a few questions.
What Pierce learns from Kat sets Sigma Force on a frantic quest for answers that are connected to mysteries reaching back to the Spanish Inquisition and to one of the most reviled and blood-soaked books in human history—a Medieval text known as the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches. What they uncover hidden deep in the past will reveal a frightening truth in the present and a future on the brink of annihilation, and force them to confront the ultimate question: What does it mean to have a soul?
As A.K. attempts recovery from his abduction and torture by President Bryan Powell, strange visions of his father and Skiv begin to torment him. In an attempt to wash them away, he reverts to old and dangerous habits. Meanwhile, Bryan Powell continues his frenzied search for the cohort, issuing a universal death penalty for all living Inexorables and broadcasting their public executions. Pressures mount and sacrifices grow more costly until the choice between war or surrender is inescapable.
Despite her tragic childhood, violin prodigy Cara Delaney has finally found peace in her career as a professional musician and stability in her relationship with her guardians, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan and ex-Navy SEAL Joe Quinn. If only Jock Gavin, Cara’s lifelong friend and a man with his own twisted history, would even talk to her, everything would be perfect.
But the carefully constructed life Cara has built for herself is suddenly threatened when she is kidnapped by a mysterious man from her grandfather’s past, setting off a violent chain of events that puts everyone Cara loves in danger. Will Cara become a tribute to her family’s dark past, or will she be able to keep herself and her loved ones alive?
It has been a good summer for forensics expert Dr David Hunter. His relationship is going well and he’s in demand again as a police consultant. His life seems to be on an even keel.
But not for long. The call comes from an old associate: a body has been found, and she’d like Hunter to take a look . . .
St Jude’s Hospital now stands empty. Slowly rotting and silently awaiting demolition, the vast, oppressive building’s only visitors have been society’s outcasts, addicts and dealers. And it’s here that the partially mummified corpse has been discovered. Hunter is not sure how long the body has been hidden in the hospital’s cavernous loft, but he’s seen enough to know it’s a young woman. And that she was pregnant.
As the remains are removed for closer examination, a floor collapses revealing a previously sealed off part of a ward. Bricked up inside this hidden chamber are three beds. Two of them are occupied . . . What other grisly secrets will St Jude’s reveal? The local community is alarmed and the police need answers. For David Hunter, what began as a challenging if straightforward case is about to become a twisted nightmare threatening him and those around him.
A dangerous element discovered by Bianca Goddard’s father falls into the wrong hands . . . leading to a chain of multiple murders.
Spring 1544: Now that she is with child, Bianca is more determined than ever to distance herself from her unstable father. Desperate to win back the favor of King Henry VIII, disgraced alchemist Albern Goddard plans to reveal a powerful new element he’s discovered – one with deadly potential. But when the substance is stolen, he is panicked and expects his daughter to help.
Soon after, a woman’s body is found behind the Dim Dragon Inn, an eerie green vapor rising from her breathless mouth. To her grave concern, Bianca has reason to suspect her own mother may be involved in the theft and the murder. As her husband John is conscripted into King Henry’s army to subdue Scottish resistance, Bianca must navigate a twisted and treacherous path among alchemists, apothecaries, chandlers, and scoundrels – to find out who among them is willing to kill to possess the element known as lapis mortem, the stone of death.
A hacker is drawn out of hiding and into an epic geopolitical showdown in the frighteningly plausible conclusion to Eliot Peper’s critically acclaimed Analog Series.
When you’ve betrayed your revolutionary cadre, an off-grid fight club on a remote tropical island is a good place to hide—or die.
For notorious ex-hacker Emily Kim, the outcome of each fight makes little difference. Black-market blood sport is the perfect self-imposed penance. But when she stumbles on a plot to overthrow the corporate empire that provides the ubiquitous global feed, Emily discovers her old friends have been targeted. Warning them will force her out into the open, back on-grid, and directly into danger. Emily can’t escape the past. But can she seize the future?
Emily’s quest for redemption spirals into an all-out shadow war. What constitutes justice in a world run by algorithms? The feed—and Emily—must be reinvented. Or destroyed.
I’m the incendiary of savages. I burn down thrones.
The Brothers and Sisters of the Apocalypse aren’t happy with Micka. She’s blown up their satellite network and now passes valuable intel to their fiercest enemy — the Sequencer Council.
But nothing goes as Micka plans, and soon the two most powerful global organisations want her dead.
Exiled from Washington after a covert operation gone wrong, Diana is building a new life as a freelance spy, though her obsessive secrecy is driving away the few friends and allies she can count on. When she’s hired to investigate the world’s leading techno capitalist, she unknowingly accepts an assignment with a dark ulterior purpose. Navigating a labyrinth of cutouts and false fronts, Diana discovers a plot to nationalize the global feed.
As tech and politics speed toward a catastrophic reckoning, Diana must reconcile the sins of her past with her dreams of tomorrow. How she deploys the secrets in her arsenal will shape the future of a planet on the brink of disaster. Doing the right thing means risking everything to change the rules of the game. But how much is freedom really worth?
Gina Mazzio’s brother is gone. He’s abandoned everything and everyone.
Long-time fans will rejoice— now we know love does conquer all. Gina is pregnant. This after doctors said it was never going to happen.
Five months into a high risk pregnancy, Gina’s veteran brother, who suffers from PTSD, has vanished. Although she is under bed-rest orders, she takes off to find him.
What she discovers is that Vinnie’s been swallowed up in a derelict, soon-to-close VA psychiatric hospital with a corrupt administration involved in greed, malevolence, and murder.
Louis Kincaid, once exiled from Michigan’s law enforcement community, gets an unexpected offer to wear a badge again, as part of an elite homicide squad for the Michigan State Police. But his return to his home comes at the bidding of the man, Mark Steele, who once set out to destroy him. With mistrust still simmering, Louis takes on the ice-cold murder case of two small boys left in a wooden box in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula over two decades earlier. But when the white-hot recent murder of a mega-church minister forces the team in another direction, Louis finds himself on the hunt for two killers, at odds again with Captain Steele and haunted by memories of his own damaged childhood.
With her vindictive ex-husband out of prison, San Francisco medical examiner Annabelle Schwartzman is trying harder than ever to move on with her life—by focusing on her job to speak for the victims who can’t. Summoned to a homicide in Golden Gate Park, she realizes that she’d seen the victim just hours before, alive and well in a parked Jeep with a small boy. Now, the woman has been stabbed to death and stripped of her burka, and the child is nowhere to be found.
When an African American student is found dead, bearing knife wounds identical to those of the woman in the park, the press jumps on them as hate crimes. If only they were so easy to explain. There is a connection—but Schwartzman believes it’s something even worse. Her fears are confirmed with the discovery of the next victim.
Now, to stop a vicious killer whose work has only just begun, Schwartzman and Detective Hal Harris must untangle the twisted thread that links it all to the missing boy and a crime buried in the past.
What better way to celebrate Halloween then to read a good dystopian novel, and Annelie Wendeberg’s latest addition to her 1/2986 series, Vow, certainly fits the bill. The series which was originally called the climate saga series is staged in the future after the affects of climate change, plagues, and warfare left 1/2986 of the human...
What better way to celebrate Halloween then to read a good dystopian novel, and Annelie Wendeberg’s latest addition to her 1/2986 series, Vow, certainly fits the bill. The series which was originally called the climate saga series is staged in the future after the affects of climate change, plagues, and warfare left 1/2986 of the human population alive. For those survivors life is not pretty and survival of the human species is hanging by a thread. It may be up to a tough young woman named Micka to save humanity from itself.
I’m the incendiary of savages. I burn down thrones.
The Brothers and Sisters of the Apocalypse aren’t happy with Micka. She’s blown up their satellite network and now passes valuable intel to their fiercest enemy — the Sequencer Council.
Annelie Wendeberg
But nothing goes as Micka plans, and soon the two most powerful global organisations want her dead.
Eliot Peper’s new series, Analog, explores what our future would be like if our brains were connected to the internet 24/7. Sounds scary, right? If you think this possibility is only in the realm of science fiction, think again. Brain-computer interface technology is already here and it won’t be long before internet connectivity is also...
Eliot Peper’s new series, Analog, explores what our future would be like if our brains were connected to the internet 24/7. Sounds scary, right? If you think this possibility is only in the realm of science fiction, think again. Brain-computer interface technology is already here and it won’t be long before internet connectivity is also in the realm of reality. Peper has released today the second book in the series, Borderless.
Information is power, and whoever controls the feed rules the world in this all-too-plausible follow-up to the science fiction thriller Bandwidth.
Eliot Peper
Exiled from Washington after a covert operation gone wrong, Diana is building a new life as a freelance spy, though her obsessive secrecy is driving away the few friends and allies she can count on. When she’s hired to investigate the world’s leading techno capitalist, she unknowingly accepts an assignment with a dark ulterior purpose. Navigating a labyrinth of cutouts and false fronts, Diana discovers a plot to nationalize the global feed.
As tech and politics speed toward a catastrophic reckoning, Diana must reconcile the sins of her past with her dreams of tomorrow. How she deploys the secrets in her arsenal will shape the future of a planet on the brink of disaster. Doing the right thing means risking everything to change the rules of the game. But how much is freedom really worth?
Available in hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audio-book
The focus of my blog is to review book series and not individual novels. But writers are going to continue writing novels within a series even after I have done my review, so I plan on reviewing the individual novels as they come into circulation. Bette Golden Lamb and J.J. Lamb have recently added book #8,...
The focus of my blog is to review book series and not individual novels. But writers are going to continue writing novels within a series even after I have done my review, so I plan on reviewing the individual novels as they come into circulation. Bette Golden Lamb and J.J. Lamb have recently added book #8, Bone Point to the Gina Mazzio series.
Gina Mazzio is a nurse with an unbridled Bronx attitude and a knack at finding murderers. She actually doesn’t go looking for them, they just seem to find her wherever she goes. This time in Bone Point, the murderers turn up at a VA psychiatric hospital. Gina’s brother Vinnie is a veteran who suffers from PTSD and gets word that one of his fellow veterans and close friend, has recently died in a psychiatric hospital. Wanting to know the circumstances behind his friend’s death, Vinnie checks himself into the same psychiatric hospital known as Bone Point which results in him being heavily medicated and with no answers. Gina is not about to stand around idly while her brother is holed up in a psychiatric hospital, so she takes on a job as a nurse to snoop around and rescue her brother. What she finds is more than what she bargained for and could potentially endanger her unborn child.
With each of the Gina Mazzio novels, the Lambs usually focus on themes that deal with faults within our medical community such as the dangers of using robotic surgery or the illegal trade of body parts. In Bone Point the spotlight is on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and lack of help for veterans through Veterans Affairs. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released a report earlier this year that indicated that half of the veterans that fought in Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and have PTSD were not getting appropriate care mainly because of lack of resources and the lack of informing veterans that benefits are available to them. In general, mental health facilities in the US are failing with fewer facilities available and sky rocketing costs making mental health treatment for a vast number of seriously mentally ill individuals unattainable.
I would say that Bone Point doesn’t quite have the thrills and chills compared to previous books in the series but is still an entertaining read. It could be read as a standalone but to get a better understanding of Mazzio and particularly her relationship to her husband Harry you might want to read the whole series.
To learn more about the series check outtheGina Mazzioseries.
