Book review - Apocalypse Soon

Second in the Continuity/Time Police series featuring Kyler Knightly and his uncle Damon Cole, Apocalypse Soon is penned by Garnett Elliott. I liked the play on words – not 'Apocalypse Now', but 'Soon' – which is explained in the text. 

The first, 30-page title story sends Kyler and Damon off to Old Vegas, circa 2035. Joining them is Melody Fischer, an aikido instructor – handy to have around in a fight, maybe. A Continuity technician, Paul Dirac, has gone rogue and hitched a ride to Pre-Apocalypse North America (hence the 'Soon' of the title). The Zygma time-travel projector transports Kyler with the aid of a ‘focus object’, something specific to the destination timeline; ergo, it can’t shunt anyone to the future.   

Unfortunately, the trio are split up on arrival and separately get involved in a zany demolition derby gladiatorial monster truck contest where the loser faces a mob baying for an excruciating death. 

Visual and visceral, it’s a fast-paced ride into Mad Max territory.

The accompanying twenty-page story 'Babylon Heist' takes Kyler to ancient Babylon, in search of another time-traveller who was after a priceless artifact for a collector in the twenty-third century. Why plunder antiquated tombs when you could pillage history itself? To help him get by undercover as Kyros the Eel, his mastoid was implanted with a linguistic chip. Inevitably, betrayal is on the menu. When the two protagonists finally confront each other, their witness observes, “What language are you two speaking? It sounds like goats farting.” 

Fast, furious fun.

A final story, unrelated, is 'Strontium Dreams', which takes place in an unspecified future, where it pays to have your tattoo GU (Genetic Undesirable) – otherwise you’re liable to be collected for organ donation to the rich in their ivory towers or, just as bad, minced  up for fast food. Sometimes, the mixture doesn’t quite work and a nervous affliction could spread: ‘… when the vendors had been mixing too much nervous tissue with the long pork.’

Two reprobates, Lev and Mac survive, barely, by scavenging. Then they find a secret place, seemingly hidden behind a wonky hologram. Unfortunately, they’re accosted by murderous seven-foot tall lean mean men of the Man-Plus type. (A nod here to Frederick Pohl’s classic novel Man Plus, perhaps). 

Some good visuals of a noir world, and good description too: ‘… the figure stirred. He raised his head and his eyes were hallways with no doors and no lights at the end.’ (p67)

Escapist sci-fi with a gory, noir edge. Try it – soon.

Book review - Carnosaur Weekend

This is a slim sci-fi volume from the prolific pen of Garnett Elliott, comprising three short stories, some 80 pages of fast-paced action.

It’s the future, about 2223 AD. Human history has taken some knocks – but was intact, though only thanks to  Continuity Inc, an organisation that snapped up the contract going begging when the government Time Corps was deregulated. Continuity Inc agents are dedicated to protecting human history. And it needs protecting since the discovery of time travel using a Zygma projector.

Continuity Inc’s headquarters had been based within the lava tunnels of the Kerguelen Plateau, a micro-continent submerged beneath the Indian Ocean. However, funding sources had slashed their budget and the entire operation had been moved to a renovated theatre in London’s West End.

Two agents of Continuity Inc are Kyler Knightly and his uncle, Damon Cole.  In ‘Carnosaur Weekend’ they’re investigating some real estate developers who had somehow obtained a Zygma projector and were offering ultra-modern homes in prehistoric earth; ‘no breathing apparatus required, golf, swimming, and tennis amenities, against a breath-taking backdrop of megaflora and fauna’ – that includes dinosaurs!

This story could have been called ‘Carnosaur Carnage’ because there’s plenty of blood and gore to satisfy the most blood-thirsty palate.  There’s also humour and satire thrown in for good measure. It goes beyond Ray Bradbury’s ‘A Sound of Thunder’.

In this future, people seem attracted by others’ wealth – 2.2 billion SMU (Standard Monetary Units). Physical attraction has relevance, too, though those who can afford it can buy their muscles and good looks. ‘… somewhere beneath that dress, Kyler felt certain, there were scars from multiple organ transplants, and injection sites for anagathics.’

Kyler is also a Dreamer, someone gifted or cursed with dreaming of events that might happen. It can be useful – or frustrating. When things go pear-shaped, he couldn’t have thought in his wildest dreams what would happen…

In ‘The Zygma Gambit’ Kyler dreams that his uncle is at risk of sabotage on his next time jaunt.  As Damon disagrees, Kyler takes matters into his own hands and becomes his uncle’s substitute and projects to the fourth moon of Caliban, 2750 AD. This jaunt is essential to the continuity of the Zygma project. But there’s a conspiracy and it threatens not only Kyler, his uncle, but the entire project. A slick twist ending.

The third story is a bonus, a non-Zygma tale, ‘The Worms of Terpsichore’, the kind of horror sci-fi that inspired countless B-movies. The space ship crew of Astarte is investigating the loss of the Sallust on the blue planet Terpsichore Five. What they encounter is gruesome and insidious, and the worms of the title are truly nasty pieces of work.

Overall, an imaginative, inventive, amusing and fast-paced volume.

I’ve posted a shorter version of this review on Amazon.