Category: science-fiction

Unto Leviathan by Richard Paul Russo

Unto Leviathan is the story of the Aragonos, a generation ship travelling the galaxy and occupied by an eclectic mix of several thousand crew members, families and clergymen. Due to rebellion that took place over one hundred years ago, records of the mission have been lost, so the ship wanders space, looking for aliens and possibly a planet they can settle on. (At least, I think that’s what they’re looking for). The story is told from the point of view of Bartolomeo, the captain’s adviser and confidante.

Having landed on alien planet, the crew discovers evidence of a massacre, and an alien transmission that leads them back into space to a derelict starship, and a trap set by malevolent aliens.

Unto Leviathan book cover

Now, I’m not quite sure why the story lost it for me; it may have been the narrator who was an interesting if unlikeable character. The author decided to make him severely disabled, which was fair enough, except it didn’t really affect the story in any way. Bartolomeo was equipped with an exoskeleton so he had no trouble getting around the ship or alien planets; he suffered none of the hardships of being disabled, so I thought it was an interesting facet of the character which was somewhat underused. Still, at least he was consistently portrayed (as we’re all the characters), and the somewhat fluid relationship between the captain and Bartolomeo was one of the most interesting aspects of the book.

But it was one of those novels that left a lot of loose threads untied before finishing rather abruptly: we never found out why they were in space, why the aliens massacred the colony, why they attempted to capture the Araganos, why the explorers of the alien vessel were driven insane … I think what wasn’t explained could’ve made another book.

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Upgrade by Blake Crouch

Upgrade is an above-average tech thriller set in at some unspecified point in the near future. The book follows the (mis)adventures of Julian Ramsey, a genetic researcher/federal agent currently working for a shady government agency tasked with hunting down scientists involved in illegal genetic experimentation. Ramsey is well-suited to the role having served time for his part in an attempt, by his mother, a renowned geneticist, to breed a locust that would spread a virus to crops, intending to make the crops resistant to blight. Unfortunately, the new crops couldn’t produce seeds, which led to a global famine that killed a hundred million people. (Ouch!)

Book cover: upgrade

While chasing down a research scientist, Ramsey is infected with a virus that enhances him physically as well as mentally. He finds that he can run marathons without breaking sweat, his reflexes allow him to anticipate and react at lightning speed, and he can read tomes of scientific material in a matter of hours. But now, he is an “illegal experiment” in his own right, so is forced to go in the run so he can track down those responsible for hacking his DNA, and stop them for ending the lives of billions more.

Well, that’s the plot, and it does work, helped along by the level of scientific detail sprinkled throughout the story, which in itself didn’t really offer any great surprises. The quality of the prose was adequate – hardly literary fiction, but it obviously wasn’t meant to be. The book aimed to be a fast-paced thriller that clipped along at decent pace, without expending too much effort on character development or growth.

Now this is fine as far as it goes, but I think I would have preferred a few surprises along the way. Everything happened as you’d expect it to, which made me think that this probably end up being optioned by Netflix one day.

Anyway, Upgrade is a decent, easy read that is strangely difficult to put down.