7th Son: Descent

JC Hutchins has a knack for storytelling. His words in both 7th Son and Personal Effects: Dark Art are simply a pleasure to read or listen to, depending on whether you go for the audio or print versions. His story weaves seven distinctly different men-an insane computer hacker, a disciplined military man, and a calm priest to name a few-into a dizzying conspiracy where these men discover that they are clones, they have been groomed to be in their current careers, and are called upon to find who is behind the recent bizarre presidential assassination. However, the person who is behind the president's death is the man they were cloned from. Hutchins excels at characterization, making us feel for each character (even if the feeling is annoyance or dislike or hatred - there are few people that we are ambivalent about). His action scenes are mind-blowing and the secrets behind his conspiracies are nothing less than brilliant. 7th Son is a science fiction thriller, but it also raises questions of faith, the soul, mental illness, and personal strength. Highly recommended.

If you missed the podcast phenomenon you can find it at http://jchutchins.net. If you favor audio books to print books, I have to suggest listening to the podcast. For one thing, it's free. For another, the author has an amazing voice. You'll love it. If you prefer your books in print, not audio, you're going to want to pick this up. The book starts with a presidential assassination and keeps building from there. It's one of the best rides in print out there. It's exciting. It's fun. It's compelling. It drags you through to the end, not letting you put it down for a moment. Easily the best book of the year.

While I'll admit that I'm not the biggest sci-fi reader, the idea of clones & espionage is pretty intriguing. The fact that this book was also touted by Scott Sigler, one of the best sci-fi podcast authors out there, was another bonus. (There's even a nod to Sigler in the book, as Hutchins named a minor character after him.) I do have to admit that I was a little wary- not all podcasts translate well into the written form. Sometimes what works in audio format doesn't work in the written form. Luckily for me, this book did translate well. The book opens with the death of the President by a 4 year old boy. No explanation is given by the boy or his parents, who claimed ignorance of everything. Meanwhile seven seemingly different men men are yanked out of their lives by armed men & taken to an unknown location. They are initially given no explanation from their captors, but it isn't until the captives are placed together that they realize the one thing they have in common. They all have the same face & the same memories up to a certain age. They are told that the original model, the Alpha, has gone insane. And they have to stop him. It took me a little bit to get into this book, but once I got the characters down I was able to keep up with the flow of the story. The idea of cloning has been done before, but this book manages to put an interesting spin on it. It's interesting to see how drastically ( & not so drastically) different all of the men are. I do wish that I'd been able to get a bit more background on each character, but then there's two more books in the series for all of that background to come out in. I was given enough background to get to know the distinctions between each character, but I have to admit that there are one or two that stand out, such as the insane Kilroy 2.0. Overall, I really enjoyed this book & I have to admit that I'll be waiting with baited breath for the next book to come out. (I could download the podcasts, but I enjoy reading more than listening.) Sci-fi fans will love this book & I would even recommend it to non sci-fi fans. The book is an accessible read for anyone who loves reading a good thriller.

I'm not normally a reader of science fiction, but that's okay, because 7th Son is far more of a thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton or Dan Brown. Seven men are kidnapped and brought to a secret government facility, where they discover that they are actually clones, part of a project dealing with human cloning and memory recording. They have been brought back together to defeat the man they were cloned from, who is bent on revenge against the program that made him - I thought this was an interesting twist and added some depth to the villain. Two days before I read this, I had read The Lost Symbol, the new Dan Brown, and they have some similarities - an interest in codes and symbols, in the cross between science and faith, but, frankly, I enjoyed this much more. The writing is far better than Brown's clumsy prose, and the action is tight. It manages to bring up some really interesting issues about human cloning and nature versus nurture and the soul, but mostly it's just a fun, fast-paced read. I knocked it out in a few hours by the pool. Warning - this is apparently the first book in a trilogy. As I neared the end, I kept wondering how the author was going to wrap it all up, and it doesn't get wrapped up - it's more like the end of a first act in a movie, but it does really open the door. I'm looking forward to the next book.