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Book Review: Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons

cover art for Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons

Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons

Thomas & Mercer, 2021 (release date Sept. 1 2021)

ISBN: 9781542014274

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Constance is an outstanding thriller written in the vein of Michael Crichton.  It’s extremely fast paced and  emotionally deep. Its version of Earth in the future is beautifully detailed, with a lot of thought put in to how technology may evolve in the next 15 years.  This is a “can’t miss” book, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Hollywood snap it up, it would be perfect material for Christopher Nolan (Interstellar, Inception) to direct.

 

The backbone of the book centers on human cloning, but not for replacement parts.  It’s for cloning replacement human beings in the event of  their untimely deaths.  Anyone with a clone in stasis has to re-download their consciousness into the clone every thirty days.  If a person dies, the clone is activated and the only memory lag should be between the last “refresh” of the clone and their time of death.   The protagonist, Constance D’Arcy, has a clone, a gift from her eccentric and very rich aunt.  When Constance wakes from her latest refresh, she learns she is not Constance, but Constance’s clone, just activated after 18 months of the original Constance being missing.  The clone (called “Con” here to eliminate confusion) is quickly on the run for her life, as various parties want her for… something.  It’s a complex puzzle for Con to learn what Constance was up to in the last 18 months, and how it relates to her being hunted by the various antagonists in the story.

 

Any more would spoil the plot, but it’s enough to say this is an incredible novel.  The characters are perfectly done and filled with depth, the thrills never stop, and the puzzle is a tough one to unravel as you read it.  Also, the science is explained well enough that the average reader won’t get overwhelmed.  Like the movie Inception, there are layers to the story, in terms of clones… and their clones… and the consciousness of some characters cloned into completely new bodies unrelated to the original.  It might be a lot to handle, but the author’s clear style keeps it easy to follow for the reader.  It helps make the story great, as the reader will never know for sure who a character actually is, until the author reveals it.  In the hands of a less talented author this could have been a labyrinthine mess, but Fitzsimmons pulls it off to perfection.

 

Fitzsimmons also does an excellent job painting some of the ethical and political problems of cloning into the story.  Different viewpoints on cloning are expressed through characters that are essential to the story.  The push/pull dynamic between the characters and their viewpoints on cloning adds depth to the story without controlling the narrative, and it is extremely well done.

 

Simply put, anyone who loves a good story has to get this one when it is released.  For a thriller, it doesn’t get any better than this.  Highly recommended.

 

Contains: profanity, mild violence

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on June 1, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The Apocalypse Strain by Jason Parent

cover art for The Apocalypse Strain by Jason Parent

The Apocalypse Strain by Jason Parent

Flame Tree Press, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-1787583535

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

 

Back in 2014, French scientists made an ancient virus found in Siberian permafrost infectious again after 30,000 years. This real-life event raised the possibility that diseases we thought were long gone might reappear. Add to that a post-pandemic world in which it seems as though science fiction has become real life, yet again, and we have to wonder what the future will hold. Our collective literary imagination will now need to take us to a new level of horror fiction contagion. Who better to infect us than Jason Parent in The Apocalypse Strain?

 

In this exciting and shockingly plausible book, a group of international scientists are under attack at a remote site that will self-destruct in case of an accident. Their human bodies are invaded, consumed, and incorporated into living, moving blobs of squirmy flesh when their research process goes terribly wrong. Within the facility, a woman with MS mysteriously becomes mobile, infected plants grow with abandon, a man marked with a black cross on his forehead seems bent on terrorism, many people die violently, and it becomes very difficult to tell who or what can be trusted. Everyone is focused on containing and exterminating the hybrid monsters, but will some humans escape only to spread doom outside the lab?

 

The action is nonstop in The Apocalypse Strain. With relentless intensity, Parent’s fantastic descriptions of the ever-morphing threat and the horrible deaths suffered by the victims are disgustingly graphic and amazing in their variety. As for the characters, they are not just stereotypes of people in their profession. We get to know the personal histories of some who are lured to destruction by actual, whispering voices from their past. Others are revealed by their fleeting thoughts or visceral reactions to their coworkers, details that are startlingly normal in contrast to the terrible circumstances in which they are trapped.

 

As the apocalypse seems imminent, we realize that this tale is not really the end of anything. If you like speculating about where science can take us and how science can potentially end us, The Apocalypse Strain will give you plenty to ponder. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on April 3, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: The Burning Girls: A Novel by C.J. Tudor

cover art for The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor

(   Bookshop.com |  Amazon.com )

The Burning Girls: A Novel by C.J. Tudor

Ballantine Books, 2021

ISBN-13 : 978-1984825025

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

Some of the best books straddle genres and wind up splintering the boundaries in the process. Some of the best authors writing today have nailed this, refusing to be pigeonholed.

C.J. Tudor broke through with the phenomenal novel The Chalk Man and now takes her blend of horror, mystery, and thriller, churning it into one of the first hits of the new year.

Set in modern-day England, Reverend Jack Brooks appears to be running from her past when she is reassigned to a church in Chapel Croft, a town where the previous vicar committed suicide. Jack and her daughter Flo reluctantly leave Nottingham after a case that may have involved an exorcism left a young girl dead. Immediately, Jack discovers the small town is full of mysteries, conspiracies, and hidden shadows that make her past resemble heaven.

The legend of the burning girls harkens back to the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary in the sixteenth century, whose purge of Protestants resulted in the deaths of eight victims, including two young girls, through, of course, burning. Thirty years ago, another pair of girls disappeared from the town, apparently meeting with foul play. Toss in another missing vicar, and the stage is set for a creepy tale that might bring to mind the best of Shirley Jackson if channeled through Lauren Beukes.

The legend says that whoever sees the burning girls is destined for a horrific fate. On her first morning, Jack discovers effigies on her doorstep, while Flo catches a fiery specter on film when exploring a disturbing, abandoned house with a boy whose past carries its own hefty shadows.

As Jack discovers the terrors that Chapel Croft has spent centuries burying, she struggles to find who to trust, and who might be seeking to add her to the body count the church seems to invite.

Tudor brings a strong dose of horror that evokes folktale. mythology, and evil in human form, by way of small town mentality. What sets The Burning Girls apart from other novels is the writing. Tudor’s strong voice is both alluring and conversational, deceptively simple in its complex characterization, especially of the role of a female priest in a setting stuck on living in dangerous nostalgia. Humor is utilzed as a foil to the terror Tudor wraps around the twisting plot, succeeding in keeping the reader off guard until the final note is played. Both this novel and the author’s previous offerings are highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Posted on February 21, 2021 by , Reply
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