Exodus Code - the Barrowman's deliver!

Torchwood Exodus Code
John and Carole E. Barrowman
BBC Books Sept. 2013

Review by Ann Wilkes

This nineteenth novel written in the Torchwood world created by Russell T Davies for the BBC show of the same name (2006-2011) was written by Torchwood star John Barrowman (Captain Jack) and his sister, Carole E Barrowman.

Torchwood Exodus Code begins with madness. Jack falls from an airplane without a chute in 1930 Peru, survives (Captain Jack is from the 51st century and - unlike other humans from that time or any other - can’t stay dead) and gets prepared for sacrifice to the mountain. The Cuari tribe have been expecting a god to fall from the sky.

All the while, his mind is slipping. Reality is shattering. He’s flooded with tastes and smells and unnatural reactions to sensations.

For a beat Jack realized the chamber was inside his head and outside it. Behind him and in front of him. He laughed at the absurdity and let himself sink back into the rock. The silver veins threaded themselves across every muscle, every limb, every part of him. Closing his eyes again, he could see himself being folded into the rock.

The sensation was wonderful, yet Jack heard himself thinking that this was not a good wonderful. It was a bad wonderful. It was the wonderful at the end of a thrilling journey. It was the wonderful after intimacy. It was the last hurrah, the final chapter, the kiss goodbye, the beginning of the end.

Jack lifted his arm and tore it away from the wall, snapping the threads.

He heard a sob. It tasted like ginger.

Back in present day Cardiff, Gwen Cooper encounters a madwoman in the aisles at a grocery store who tries to end her suffering by tearing off her own ear. Gwen is also succumbing to a madness that is affecting clusters of women around the world. And it has to do with heightened and crossed senses. Like synaesthia on steroids with some delusion and hallucination thrown in. Torchwood, an organization that investigates alien threats and defends the world against invasion, having suffered grave losses and being org-non-grata with the government, has been, for all practical purposes disbanded. Only Gwen and Captain Jack Harness are left.

When Gwen realizes there’s something wrong on a worldwide scale, she contacts Jack through a computer she’s stashed away down the street while her baby sleeps in her crib. She has the baby monitor. It will be ok, she thinks. She then hears footsteps on the stairs of her house. She’s worried Rhys will get to Anwen and realize she’s not home. Then he'll really be done with her.

Gwen stopped typing. Her hands frozen in mid-air. What if it wasn't Rhys?”

Gwen comes completely unglued and attacks and nearly kills her own husband. Jack comes just in the nick of time. Gwen is put on a ward with other women suffering the same “masochistic madness”. Jack and Rhys try to figure out what’s going on, but without Torchwood computers, it’s slow going.

Meanwhile, something is happening in the Earth’s oceans. Tremors, which are inexplicably not setting off tsunamis, are opening hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor and spewing toxins. Jack enlists the help of an old friend with a arsenal of special tech equipment aboard a ship in the Atlantic.

All the characters in the story come to life. I could picture all of them. Felt I knew them. Exodus Code is the first tie-in novel I’ve ever read. Well, that’s going to have to change. What a ride! It was like getting to experience a two-part episode of Torchwood with more detail and drilling down deeper into the minds of the characters and the forces at work against them.

No real familiarity with the show is necessary to enjoy this book, but being familiar with the characters makes it come alive. It’s a swashbuckling adventure meets sci-fi meets mystery. You are in Captain Jack's muddled head as he tries to unravel the puzzle. If he doesn’t figure it out soon, the world will end. No pressure.

The Barrowmans make a great writing team. The pacing, plot and scenes were very tight. Loved this book cover to cover. More please.

Darwin Elevator grabs readers with unique post-apocalyptic premise

The Darwin Elevator
Book 1 of The Dire Earth Cycle
Jason M. Hough
Del Rey 2013

Review by Clare Deming

In this debut novel by Jason M. Hough, humanity has fallen on hard times after the mysterious arrival of an alien space elevator in Darwin, Australia. While first heralded as a promising technology, the elevator's appearance is followed by a plague which turns the majority of those affected into feral sub-humans, if it doesn't kill them outright. Only the protective Aura encircling the elevator can prevent the disease from infecting and transforming the population.

The underlying cause of the disease is unknown, but a few rare souls are immune to its effects. By the time the novel opens, nearly all of humanity has either died from the plague, been converted to a sub-human, or found refuge in the disease-free ring of land and space encompassed by the elevator's Aura.

Skyler Luiken is one of those fortunate immunes, and since he can travel outside the Aura without a sealed suit, he makes his living as a scavenger of earth's former civilizations, recovering items requested by those restricted to Darwin. His small team runs into trouble when the elevator loses power at the same time that Skyler's ship crosses the Aura on their return from a routine mission. His ship is subjected to a search and his crew draws the suspicion of Russell Blackfield, prefect of Nightcliff, a fortress built to guard the base of the alien elevator.

Humans also live on a series of orbital habitats, tethered along the elevator. They grow food for all mankind, while Nightcliff fortress oversees the exchange of this food for air and water from below. One of the Orbitals, scientist Dr. Tania Sharma, has developed a theory that the alien Builders are set to return in the very near future. Together with Neil Platz, the entrepreneur who built many of the human additions along the elevator, Tania launches a secret investigation into the aliens' imminent return.

Tania's research leads her to recruit Skyler to retrieve data from abandoned astronomical facilities. In the course of his missions, Skyler draws more scrutiny upon himself and his crew from the overbearing Russell Blackfield. Tension builds as repeated malfunctions in the elevator and political wrangling both threaten the fragile economy of Darwin. At the same time, the sub-humans are becoming more aggressive and dangerous to those outside the Aura, or even on its periphery.

The world that Hough has built in this book was very easy to visualize, and the plot kept me guessing with abundant tension and action that never became exhausting. After a few unforeseen surprises in the plot, I was truly enjoying myself. The vivid characters presented a realistic mix of cultural backgrounds, with both male and female personalities shining in their roles. For me, Russell Blackfield's actions became a bit over-the-top as the novel progressed, but it did not detract from the rest of the story.

The Darwin Elevator shows marvelous skill for a new author and was one of the best books that I've read all year. It is the first volume in The Dire Earth Cycle, but fortunately you don't have to wait for the next book - the remaining two volumes have already been released. I have the second book, The Exodus Towers, in my hands already.

Dorm life in The Highest Frontier

The Highest Frontier 

by Joan Slonczewski

TOR 2011

Reviewed by Deirdre Murphy

Jennifer Ramos Kennedy is descended from American Presidents in a world where “ultra” is the new kudzu.  Left emotionally damaged by the sudden death of her twin brother, and despite a congenital abnormality that left her unable to speak in public, she has a straight A+++ average,  is an award-winning young scientist, and a volunteer who works both as an EMS and with Homeland Security dealing with everyday incursions of ultra.  As the book opens, Jenny is preparing to go to Frontera, a university on a space station circling the Earth.

Ultraphytes are an alien menace, a life form that crash-landed in the great salt flats of Utah, and which grows and mutates fast.  When stressed, it emits cyanide, killing things—and people.  Between ultra and global warming, the Earth is in trouble.  Some people look to the space stations for a safe escape from the troubles of Earth.  Others seek religious freedom or freedom from Earth’s gambling and morality laws. 

Jenny’s father runs the North American branch of Toynet, which is the super-Internet of Jenny’s day.  People text and video-chat, vote, attend classes, experience the news, and much more in Toynet.  As they ride modified anthrax strings into space, in between frequent messages in various Toynet windows, Jenny’s parents warn her to tie her shoelaces, keep her protective HIV up to date, do her homework, play (not a typo) her taxes, and, of course, listen to the mental they installed into her Toynet diad after her twin's death to watch over her mental health.

As this interaction shows, the setting is a graceful blend of the strange new world of the future and the normal, everyday life of a college student.  Jenny is warned away from Professor Abaynesh’s Life class by an upperclassman who doesn’t know Abaynesh is already signed up as Jenny’s advisor.  Jenny ignores the advice—a good thing for the reader.  The first Life class is an adventure in itself, combining the day’s lessons with the excitement of a time-travel scavenger hunt and a roller-coaster ride on a strand of DNA.

At first, the dangers at Frontera seem limited and ordinary, despite being on a space station.  Jenny believes she has been sent here rather than to one of the larger prestigious universities on earth because she needs a safer environment than she would find there—after all, she has a chromosomal impediment to speaking in public and she was emotionally damaged by the death of her brother.  This college is run by friends of the family and the grounds are totally free of invasive species—no need to worry about ultra or catching Dengue fever again (though Jenny finds she misses kudzu).

Still, college is a challenge.  Jenny has to learn to live with a very strange roommate (another damaged rich girl), face down her advisor (and her advisor’s two-headed pets), push herself to speak to strangers, and call tech support to attend to her new residence’s Toybox.  The normal challenges of a girl having to live on her own for the first time.  But then she swats a mosquito, there is a malfunction in her lawn, and a piece of space debris blocks a portion of the power being beamed to the station, cutting off Toynet and causing a brown-out.  Suddenly Frontera University seems more like an actual frontier than a safe haven for damaged rich kids.  In the meantime, the American Presidential race is heating up.

The emotional plot is, of course, the story of Jenny’s coming-of-age.  It’s hard to give a hint of the main science-fiction plot without offering spoilers.  Nearly everything that’s happening matters, in big or small ways, to the central problem that Jenny must face and the clues to that mystery blend seamlessly into the background.  I don’t want to tell you what to look for—part of the pleasure of reading the book was figuring it out for myself.

The characters in The Highest Frontier, from Jenny’s very political family to her professors and the coterie of students that Jenny hangs out with are memorable, quirky, and real.  There’s a lot going on, with science and politics—and, of course, Jenny’s actions—affecting the outcome.  Jenny has enough skills to be a satisfying hero and enough flaws to be a believable and sympathetic college student.  The main plotlines are resolved but it is clear that, as in the real world, life goes on.  I am left wondering if there will be a sequel.