Edge by Thomas Blackthorne

Truly a keeper! 4 Talons!

It's not often that I am blown away by a novel anymore. I read so much, so often, that I take in an incredible amount of fiction on a regular basis. Most of what I read is enjoyable entertainment to me, and it helps me to pass the time.

However, every once in a while a novel comes along that really grips my imagination and truly engages every part of me on multiple levels. Edge by Thomas Blackthorne is one of those rarities.

To begin with I should introduce the author. Taken from the back of the book: Thomas Blackthorne is a pseudonym of a British science fiction novelist named John Meany. John Meany has written To Hold Infinity, the Nulapeiron sequence, Bone Song, Dark Blood and The Ragnarok Trilogy. His writing has been shortlisted  for the British Science Fiction Award, won the Independent Publishers Best Novel Award in SF/Fantasy, and won the Daily Telegraph Books of the Year.

Meany has been a teacher of business analysis, and software engineering on three continents. He is also a black belt in shotokan karate, and has cross trained in other (martial) arts. He is also a trained hypnotherapist. His short bio makes him sound like a man of many talents, intelligence, and personal discipline. For a somewhat nerdy gal with a bit of a background in martial arts like me, he sounds like a rather "hawt" gentleman. ;-) To see what I mean, read his more complete bio on his website: http://www.johnmeaney.com/bio.html

Edge is a science fiction novel that is set on Earth, not too far in the future. It's a recognizable Earth, just with slightly more advanced technology, and logically progressed political and economic situations from what presently exist today. It's as if the author has taken what exists to the known world today and simply pushed the clock forward, imagining the world as it might become if everything goes along just as it very easily could.

First of all, I love that it's set mainly in Britain, as I'm quite tired of the predominance of novels that are set in the same old, self-centric USA. Secondly I fell in love with the two central characters, the hero and heroine, Josh and Suzanne.

Josh Cumberland is a fascinating man - to me at least. He is a "retired" military man with very specialized training in combat and computer technology. He no longer really works for any one government, but is part of an elite team that trains other people for money.

Suzanne Duchesne is a beautiful, intelligent French born black woman who is a highly trained hypnotherapist. Her techniques and abilities to control and manipulate the human mind make Spock look like a Neanderthal.

Together they make one heck of a team. Then, add to the mix a bunch of Josh's hi-tech special forces "Ghost Force" buddies and you've got a miniature army capable of nearly anything...

In this novel they have two objectives.
1) Find and safely retrieve the young runaway son of a powerful British tycoon.
2) Expose and topple the highly corrupt people at the apex of the British government who are profiting from using the living bodies of poor young people as factories to create and farm new drugs in "Virapharm labs".

I particularly appreciated the extreme mental and physical disciplines that the protagonists immersed themselves in and exercised throughout the novel. Yes, there was a an extreme amount of violence involved (the legalized popularized public knife dueling is just a part of it), but having studied and practiced Jiujitsu myself at a younger age, I was able to relate to the high art and science of training your mind and body to survive under extreme conditions.

In other events which occur in the book, I could also recognize my own present life concerns and anxieties about how the US government is continuing to devolve into religious right wing extremism and fanaticism. When so much power is in the hands of people who are headed in such a frightening direction, the rest of the world really should sit up and take notice and be worried...

Anyway, I was riveted right from the start, all the way to the finish of this book, and when it ended, I nearly couldn't stand it, and I was already jonesing for more. It had such an impact on me that I literally do not want to return this book to the library. I've already renewed it once -- just because. It's almost like I can hold the characters in my hand and connect with them that way, through the book. Weird huh? Yeah, I guess I'm weird. :-)

Point, the sequel to this novel is already in the works, and hopefully it will be available for purchase ASAP!

Thomas Blackthorne aka John Meaney can be found at www.johnmeaney.com

He is one of those authors who I find so inspiring, that he makes me imagine all over again that maybe, just maybe, I could turn all of my own quirky inner ideas into a book/s someday. I'll be reading along and start going, "Oh hey, I recognize that thought/concept/philosophy/perception of the world! I can really relate on a very personal level!"  and "Oh, yeah, I love that character - he/she's something like what I've imagined before!" or "Gosh if these ideas and these characters and this writing can be successful...could it be possible for me as well?" And so on...but...sigh...I am most likely doomed to forever be a reader, not a writer...

Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane

I thought this novel was really fresh, and refreshing. It had a strong and interesting female lead character in Chess Putnam, a witch, brave ghost hunter, and drug addict. It had a world made new by the rise of angry, deadly ghosts which need to be kept under control by a new kind of religion - one which relies upon the existence of violent spirits and the need to control them for the safety of the living. And of course there are the black magick users who want to challenge those in power, drug lords and rival gangs, and the push pull  attraction repulsion between Chess and two very different men. It made me want to read the next one in the series just to find out what happens to Chess next...I cared about her, and that made the reading good.

Apocalypse of the Dead by Joe McKinney

Despite the fact that novels about vampires and zombies are both about death and undeath, they approach mortality and immortality in very different ways. Novels about zombies have different kinds of horrors and fears, and explore different physical, spiritual, psychological and emotional states. There is nothing remotely sexy and seductive about obviously decaying corpses stumbling mindlessly about driven by an implacable desire to rip, rend and tear living human flesh with filthy fingernails and blunt human teeth teeming with zombie plague bacteria with one purpose only - to spread the disease.

A biological apocalypse brought about by an outbreak of zombies raises issues of sheer survival. What happens if civilization as we know it breaks down suddenly, quickly, violently, and irrevocably? Who will survive? How? Why? For how long? What qualities does it take for people to survive such an event? What sorts of leaders and followers will emerge? When the old order breaks down, what sort of new order will rise to takes it's place? What can we believe in - government? religion? science? Who can we place our trust in when anyone might become infected, and new enemies might arise at any time, and from familiar faces? When the body arises from the dead, what survives, if anything of the person or spirit or spark which once inhabited and animated that body? Is there anything at all after the death of the body? Are we any more or less than hunks of blood and flesh and brain synapses firing?

These were some of the issues raised while I read this novel. I thought it was well written and entertaining, and definitely disturbing.

American Gothic by Michael Romkey

This novel crosses generations from 1863 to the present. It examines addictions to drugs, alcohol, violence, power, and blood. It probes the pains of love and loss, depression, and the meaning or meaninglessness of life and death. And it uses the theme of the vampire to explore what it means to be monstrously monstrous, monstrously human, humanely monstrous, and what can be found to be redeeming in humanity. The writing weaves in and out, meandering through time and places and lives in a hypnotic and compelling way. I was surprised that I enjoyed reading it as much as I did. I wasn't expecting that when I started out.

Night Tides by Alex Prentiss

This book was a lot more centered around sex and sensuality than most of the books I read. However, the sex and sensuality was core to the story, and it had an unusual spiritual layer to it as well which made it all the more interesting.

The lead female character has an incredibly intimate relationship with the Native spirits of the Madison, Wisconsin lakes she lives near. She communes with them sexually, but they also help her with an ongoing mystery involving beautiful young college girls being abducted.

I enjoyed the developing relationship she had going with the lead male character, but of course it had to run into it's challenges which will be explored in the next novel.

An entertaining and intriguing read to while away an evening.

Insomniac Reader's Catch up Post

Ok. I have insomnia. I've given up and made some decaf green chai tea and decided it was time for me to catch up on my reading blog.

Things didn't work out like I expected with the werewolf books (see "Wolf's Bluff). I went to my local library to order them (reserve them) but discovered to my disappointment that my library doesn't bother to catalogue their paperbacks and so if I want to read the previous two books in the series I'll have to get them from Amazon.

So, to satisfy my insatiable reader's craving I had to settle for whatever dark urban fantasy, horror, etc. books I could find on the library shelves at the time. Since I last made an entry here I have read:

Night Tides by Alex Prentiss
American Gothic by Michael Romkey
Apocalypse of the Dead by Joe McKinney
Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane

Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs
(This was another great book by Briggs. I always love Patricia Briggs for a great evening of reading entertainment)
and
Dead Beat by Jim Butcher (Again, Jim Butcher is always a go-to guy for a great night of reading. He's a guy who never lets me down! ;-) )

More to follow...