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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
If I were to try to describe the unfortunately timely young adult dystopia, I'd say it was like a psychological Hunger Games; a tough heroine and her boys fighting against circumstances (if this case a killer virus) and the system (a big corporate conglomerate of science, tech and military might). It's fairly slow paced and full of utterly bemusing twists, not to mention a fair bit of conceptually disturbing body horror. If the science weren't so safely ridiculous and outside the realms of current possibility, it would be a far more horrific read.
We follow a girl named Caterina who's spent the last 3 years holed up in a cabin in the woods with her genius biohacking doctor father and his assistant Dax. A virus that causes suffers to eventually explore, thus releasing a cloud of infectious particles, has gripped the world. Despite the efforts of Cartaxus, funder of the most skilled research scientists, there is no vaccine. Only consuming the flesh of the recently infected conveys a short dose of protection - something made easier by the fact that some kind of scent given off by the sufferer triggers a zombie-like state in the uninfected known as the Wrath. One day Cartaxus come for Cat's father, to drag him back to work for them. He makes her swear to stay out of their clutches; she's a bio-hacking coding genius too, and he fears what they'll do to her. But when a Cartaxus soldier gone rogue turns up to find her with an encrypted message from her father, Cat starts to find that not everything is as simple as follow the clues and save the world from the virus.
Despite some of those more sickening aspects, such as an explosion-inducing virus, it really did mirror for me a surprisingly low-octane Hunger Games/Divergent vibe. That's not to say it feels derivative or lacking in drama; the dystopian setting and the characters are very different. There's just something about that slightly hopeless YA voiced by a certain kind of emotionally stunted heroine. Caterina is very stunted, and for good (plot-based) reason. I did roll my eyes at the romance aspect that comes in (honestly, if a girl describes a guy's scent, she's a gonner for Romance By Proximity). It's the usual sort of insta-love followed by denial, becoming slow-burn, eventual lips-crashing-together stuff that will come as absolutely zero surprise.
Characters are generally logical, except early on where Cat and Cole seem to do things just because Plot Reasons.
What was surprising was how some of the twists turned out. They're spaced out throughout the story (some maybe illogically so, only left unrevealed because a character arbitrarily wants to talk "later" for reasons undisclosed) so you don't get too many shocks at once. Some twists are obvious, others much more out of nowhere, and some just seem downright convenient. Maybe that's a good way of describing a lot of what happens - things just conveniently fall into place, and world building aspects just conveniently get explained with one of those "oh yeah, by the way..." sort of sections. It's nothing clunky, but seasoned readers might recognise exposition chunks when they see them.
The scientific geekery was pretty cool, if sometimes patchy. People grow "panels" inside them to connect them to various tech and "apps" that can be installed to help with anything from healing speed to aesthetic changes. While I don't feel it was all explained quite as well as it could have been, it's still an interesting way of looking at the morals of using technology to alter humanity in a way that's at least vaguely understandable. It's a bit like imagining becoming a cyborg by integrating with your smartphone that's also got some useful medical functions. Something about the body grows silicone parts, but still needs clunky tubes and wires and chips inserted from the outside - did no one invent NFC connections for it? Some body horror comes from the amount of times characters have to cut themselves, or wires burst through skins.
Also, the amount of times someone's "going into shock" after being shot. The constant near-death experiences felt like they should be triggers from some kind of drinking game. You cannot unsee.
It is very much a YA affair with a sci-fi skin, so anyone looking for more "grown up" reads might be left with a disconnect when it comes to teenage angst in a grim new world. But still it's a pretty solid dystopian read, full of new and strange (and disturbing) plot twists to complement that old YA romance soap opera side of the plot.
We follow a girl named Caterina who's spent the last 3 years holed up in a cabin in the woods with her genius biohacking doctor father and his assistant Dax. A virus that causes suffers to eventually explore, thus releasing a cloud of infectious particles, has gripped the world. Despite the efforts of Cartaxus, funder of the most skilled research scientists, there is no vaccine. Only consuming the flesh of the recently infected conveys a short dose of protection - something made easier by the fact that some kind of scent given off by the sufferer triggers a zombie-like state in the uninfected known as the Wrath. One day Cartaxus come for Cat's father, to drag him back to work for them. He makes her swear to stay out of their clutches; she's a bio-hacking coding genius too, and he fears what they'll do to her. But when a Cartaxus soldier gone rogue turns up to find her with an encrypted message from her father, Cat starts to find that not everything is as simple as follow the clues and save the world from the virus.
Despite some of those more sickening aspects, such as an explosion-inducing virus, it really did mirror for me a surprisingly low-octane Hunger Games/Divergent vibe. That's not to say it feels derivative or lacking in drama; the dystopian setting and the characters are very different. There's just something about that slightly hopeless YA voiced by a certain kind of emotionally stunted heroine. Caterina is very stunted, and for good (plot-based) reason. I did roll my eyes at the romance aspect that comes in (honestly, if a girl describes a guy's scent, she's a gonner for Romance By Proximity). It's the usual sort of insta-love followed by denial, becoming slow-burn, eventual lips-crashing-together stuff that will come as absolutely zero surprise.
Spoiler
I was so hopeful that Cat having Dax and Cole having Jun Bei would mean they wouldn't shack up, but alas, that would be too radical. Not that the reveal about Jun Bei's identity isn't some kind of radical (I'm still curious why that name though - a science reference like Dax Crick?), it's just a tad disappointing when you thought there was just the slightest chance things might be different.Characters are generally logical, except early on where Cat and Cole seem to do things just because Plot Reasons.
What was surprising was how some of the twists turned out. They're spaced out throughout the story (some maybe illogically so, only left unrevealed because a character arbitrarily wants to talk "later" for reasons undisclosed) so you don't get too many shocks at once. Some twists are obvious, others much more out of nowhere, and some just seem downright convenient. Maybe that's a good way of describing a lot of what happens - things just conveniently fall into place, and world building aspects just conveniently get explained with one of those "oh yeah, by the way..." sort of sections. It's nothing clunky, but seasoned readers might recognise exposition chunks when they see them.
The scientific geekery was pretty cool, if sometimes patchy. People grow "panels" inside them to connect them to various tech and "apps" that can be installed to help with anything from healing speed to aesthetic changes. While I don't feel it was all explained quite as well as it could have been, it's still an interesting way of looking at the morals of using technology to alter humanity in a way that's at least vaguely understandable. It's a bit like imagining becoming a cyborg by integrating with your smartphone that's also got some useful medical functions. Something about the body grows silicone parts, but still needs clunky tubes and wires and chips inserted from the outside - did no one invent NFC connections for it? Some body horror comes from the amount of times characters have to cut themselves, or wires burst through skins.
Also, the amount of times someone's "going into shock" after being shot. The constant near-death experiences felt like they should be triggers from some kind of drinking game. You cannot unsee.
It is very much a YA affair with a sci-fi skin, so anyone looking for more "grown up" reads might be left with a disconnect when it comes to teenage angst in a grim new world. But still it's a pretty solid dystopian read, full of new and strange (and disturbing) plot twists to complement that old YA romance soap opera side of the plot.
I'm a massive William Gibson fan but it's been a while since I've read a cyberpunk novel... and I don't think I've read one aimed at a YA audience.
This was excellent! Truly excellent. I'm lost for words. Simultaneously twisty and intimate and epic and convincing. It threw up all manner of ethical quandaries. Whilst it flung you straight into the world of genkits and biotech, Suvada didn't leave you bewildered or unable to engage with the plot and characters as some SciFi can.
It took my breath away.
This was excellent! Truly excellent. I'm lost for words. Simultaneously twisty and intimate and epic and convincing. It threw up all manner of ethical quandaries. Whilst it flung you straight into the world of genkits and biotech, Suvada didn't leave you bewildered or unable to engage with the plot and characters as some SciFi can.
It took my breath away.
Wow really liked this. Fast paced with lots of twists I didn’t see coming. Kinda like the Walking Dead but with more futuristic technology.
I think the world building here is incredible and I’m interested to see where this series will go. The characterization is very weird and they were kind of silly to me at times.
DNF’ed at 41%. I couldnt get into this one, listening at 2.5x speed trying to get to a point where I enjoyed the story but after listening to almost half of it, I still felt like the story had gone no where?? Such a terrifying premise though - apocalyptic plague takes over the world and the disease causes people to explode then turning into a giant death and anyone in general vicinity tries to then eat people??? so much potential but this one just fell short for me
This book is a weird book but I really enjoyed it. When I first started to read it I was intrigued instantly, as so many questions already started flowing in my head and I think that is really important in a first impression...
Read the rest of my review on my blog:
https://angelicimpressions.blogspot.com/2018/08/this-mortal-coil-this-mortal-coil.html
Read the rest of my review on my blog:
https://angelicimpressions.blogspot.com/2018/08/this-mortal-coil-this-mortal-coil.html
This is a 3.5 for me. It's classed as a YA, but that's not the problem. I could do without the roughly five scenes of very adolescent crush-love-lust — those are definitely the most YA things in it. It's a bit too long for the amount of story. Some repetition could have been eliminated by an editor.
The science is especially fun to read here, and that's not something I usually praise in a science-fiction novel. I'd rather my science fiction be heavy on the psychology and sociology than on the physics or — as here — the biogenetics.
Gene hacking is the main thing. People have a panel grown into their arm, and through it you can hack your appearance (hair color, skin texture) and most medical conditions. This is pretty cool, if creepy (some descriptions of what the panel does made me squirm with discomfort). However, there's a world-ending virus running loose, and no way to control it. Catarina, our main character and first-person narrator, is the daughter of a man who might be able to develop the desperately needed vaccine. She hasn't seen him for a couple of years, though.
Catarina is as sympathetic as most teen-girl YA heroines, but too superficial for my taste. She's smart, strong, resourceful, etc., but she's mainly defined by her relationship to her father and her relationship to a genetically modified soldier-boy who comes along early in the story.
There's a second book that apparently picks up right where this one ends, but I won't be reading it.
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The science is especially fun to read here, and that's not something I usually praise in a science-fiction novel. I'd rather my science fiction be heavy on the psychology and sociology than on the physics or — as here — the biogenetics.
Gene hacking is the main thing. People have a panel grown into their arm, and through it you can hack your appearance (hair color, skin texture) and most medical conditions. This is pretty cool, if creepy (some descriptions of what the panel does made me squirm with discomfort). However, there's a world-ending virus running loose, and no way to control it. Catarina, our main character and first-person narrator, is the daughter of a man who might be able to develop the desperately needed vaccine. She hasn't seen him for a couple of years, though.
Catarina is as sympathetic as most teen-girl YA heroines, but too superficial for my taste. She's smart, strong, resourceful, etc., but she's mainly defined by her relationship to her father and her relationship to a genetically modified soldier-boy who comes along early in the story.
There's a second book that apparently picks up right where this one ends, but I won't be reading it.
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Intriguing speculative science but SUPER annoying narrator. Will reluctantly read the next in the series.