The mission seemed simple enough even for an ex-army ranger out of his element by a century and should have been a walk in the park. Because Mace isn’t the only who breaks into the secure facility and the building is overrun with terrorists. Mace has to find a way out before he compromises himself and the entire Red Zone team to the enemy but there’s no leaving with the woman who inadvertently helped him get inside and she has no idea that she’s calling to the animal that’s been locked inside him for a century.

The second book in the ‘Red Zone’ series is action packed and full of extreme suspense that has readers holding their breath and while knuckling their books or ereaders. The characters are strong, vivid and believable which makes it easy for readers to become caught up in their story and the chemistry between the hero and heroine sizzles with enough electrical current to knock out all the power to the building they are in. The relationship however starts off on an exciting wrong foot and is full of feisty and heated arguments as they struggle to stay alive while denying their attraction.

The plot is fast paced, full of suspense and reminds readers of ‘Die Hard’ type movies where the action never stops and the readers can’t possibly find a moment to relax from the pulse pounding excitement. The author has certainly created a wonderfully different futuristic world and a creative paranormal being that is sorta shifter life but really isn’t which makes this a fascinating, feisty and entertaining must read book.

Felt like a lot of filler until the very end. A lot of Becky just going on about the facility.



However, the facility was pretty cool. Not so much what they wanted them to do to the real zombies, even if they are already dead. I'm glad Becky didn't give in like the others, and her actions made the others thinks about what they were doing. The end was pretty cool, but poor Mark. Why was he there? Hopefully, the next book explains. The zombie process was interesting. It was unlike anything else I've heard of. Becky goes into detail about it (filler!), and it could have been shortened, but it is good to know. Glad Josh let her go in the end.

Well, in the previous books I have looked at the concept of Mega-Corporations and touched on the idea of cyberware, so with this particular book I will probably continue my discussion on cyberware, though I will like to have a few words about the book first. I guess this novel would primarily be concerned about racism, and some have suggested that the concepts in this book are before their time: I disagree most heartily. The issue of racism has been around for quite a while, and, at least in the United States, began really boiling over in the 60s during the civil rights movement.

The protagonist is a young man named Peter, however when he reaches puberty he suddenly metamorphoses into a troll. In the Shadowrun world (like a lot of other worlds that are not related to Dungeons and Dragons) trolls are very big, very strong, and very tough. In fact in Shadowrun, the troll's skin is considered so tough that it counts as armour. However, being a walking, talking, smashing machine does have its draw backs - one of them being that you are pretty ugly and you are probably nowhere near as intelligent as others. However Peter is actually not that stupid as he is a doctor.

I guess the novel also explores the idea of accepting one self as one is. Peter became a troll, and as a medical practitioner, immediately began looking for ways to 'cure' himself of his condition. However, it technically is not a disease <i>per-se</i> (though the author does go into details of how one changes into a troll) but rather a change that naturally comes about (like puberty). It is suggested that until the awakening (that is when magic returned to Earth) we all had the dormant genes in our body and when magic was reawakened these genes were activated causing some to metamorphose into something else.

As well as accepting one's own self there is also the idea of how one is rejected because one is different. It is like trolls are only used, pretty much, for their strength, and the racial stereotyping that occurs pretty much suggests that trolls are all stupid. Obviously this is not the case with Peter as he is not only a medical practitioner but also a researcher. However he could probably still flatten Mike Tyson in the boxing ring.

The concept of cyberware is interesting (I know I am dramatically changing the subject, but I wanted to at least write about cyberware) as it is augmenting the human body. When my Mum got her pacemaker I noticed that she we from needing 12 hours of sleep a night to only 4 hours. When I discovered this I seriously wanted a pacemaker. Now, pacemakers are for fixing an abnormality in your heart, however I did not view it as such but rather a means of being able to augment one's physical characteristics, but I suspect that there will also be draw backs. In the Shadowrun world this is called essence.

Essence defines how human you are. The more metal that you put into your body, the less human you become, to the point where once you no longer have any essence you pretty much cease to be human and become little more than a rampaging monster. The type of cyberware available is everything from arms and legs to retrofitted eyes which allow split vision, zoom, as well as data matching (the eyes can have a Heads Up Display). However for every augmentation you take you lose some of your humanity.

As for the real world, I suspect that augmentation does not simply drain your humanity, but can have some serious negative effects upon your body. Taking the heart example above, because I do not need a pacemaker, installing a pacemaker so that I may have more productive hours in a day could end up being disastrous. It is like pushing a car beyond what the car is capable off. Cars, for instance, have a maximum amount that they can tow, and if they are forced to tow more than the car's capacity allows, you might be lucky and discover that the tow-bar has been ripped off the underside carriage, or you could be unlucky and discover that your entire engine has been fried.

I suspect that it will be the same with bodily augmentation. Drugs have a similar effect, particularly some restricted anti-depressants (MDMA for example). These drugs have the ability to convince you that everything is find, and that you can almost do anything and succeed. However the catch is that the drugs are causing you to delude yourself. I have seen people on such drugs that have what they believe to be a fool proof plan, but when they put it into action, it suddenly comes apart, but because the drug has deluded them to the point that they can only accept success, the result is pretty much a mental breakdown. The same goes for other augmentations. I believe that if I were to get a pacemaker when I do not need a pacemaker then it could result in my heart being forced to work overtime, and as a result, will radically increase my chances of having a heart attack.

I remember that when I bought this book somebody said to me that it was brilliant. Having now read it (and it only took me the first ten pages to realise it) I must wholeheartedly agree with this person. This is indeed a brilliant book. As I was reading it I was reminded me a lot of 'The Day of the Triffids' and my hunch was correct that it indeed was written by the same author.

This book is set far into the future. The world has been destroyed by nuclear war (we assume, though it is never actually spelled out) and the setting is a small collection of villages on the island of Labrador. The village is inhabited by humans who believe that they are the true image of God. The reason for this is that we are told that only two books survive from the old time, the Bible and an interpretation of the Bible called Repentances. It is from Repentances that the belief of the villagers about the true form comes. They believes that unless one has the form of a human as we know it then they are cursed and are cast out of the village to live on the fringe. An animal that is deemed to be deviant (as well as crops) are automatically destroyed. However, it is only the obvious defects that are usually found out because the hero of the book (David) and a group of his friends have the power of telepathy, however they quickly learn that they must keep this ability a closely guarded secret.

The introduction to this book compared it with 1984 in that it is really a criticism of British society at the time of writing (1984 is an anagram of 1948, the year the book was written). It is sad that science fiction and fantasy have degenerated to the corporate rubbish that it is today, though there is still a lot of quality writing available. The Chrysalids is about change and a society's resistance to it. It is interesting that looking back at the 50's we do not see the problems that are raised in the book, and the only fear that I know of was the fear of communism. However it is difficult to link communism with the mutants in the Chrysalids. Further, it is difficult to picture a church as powerful in the 50's as it was in the book. However, it is possible that the idea is that the church in the book represents the government, and that the mutants represent thinking and belief that is in opposition to the government of the day. While people were not killed or exiled for differing beliefs, the red scare did lead to a lot of needless persecutions (which is similar to Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which, while set in Salem during the witch hunts, was reflective of the communist purges of his times). However, the Chrysalids is not about people being falsely accused for ulterior motives, but rather a fear of change and the unknown, and those who show difference are hated. Even more so, where the telephaths (or, as I believe, the Chrysalids) are concerned, feared intensely because the norms simply cannot know who they are.