Book Review of

Deus Ex: Icarus Effect

By

Brendan

Sometimes the best books are the ones that we least expect to succeed. Deus Ex Icarus Effect is written in formal third person by a man named James Swallow and based on the upcoming game Deus Ex Human Revolution. The story has twists and turns around unexpected corners pushing thoughts and ideas into your head of what the world would be like if these events were to happen.

Deus Ex Icarus Effect, is based on the future of human society in the year of 2027 where people have robotic arms or legs and optic eyes that can see through thin walls or go thermal vision. It truly is a time of advancement. But, as in all worlds, there are those against, those who seek to destroy the idea of robotics and return mankind back to how they were before. During this period the world is torn up. Private armies and large businesses as well as gangs or terrorist groups rule the world as governments tumble and the world falls. Ben Saxon, an ex SAS soldier and current mercenary, is fighting in civil war torn Australia when he is recruited by a mysterious special ops group called the Tyrants. From the beginning Saxon has doubts as the group tests his moral standards and question everything he was taught.

Meanwhile Anna Kelso, a secret service agent, is struck by the ferocity of an unknown assailant and looses almost all she holds dear. Driven by grief and anger she does all she can to try to find those responsible for her pain. Her curiosity, though, becomes her curse after she is suspended for denying missions and orders. Still unable to let her loved ones go she is forced to join those she swore to put down, a cyber terrorist group the Juggernauts. But how can she find answers if even the greatest cyber group in the world doesn’t know the answer?

As the story progresses and the chaos of the world is revealed we see that civilization is close to collapse. Countries seem not to exist. Gangs threaten the world. The reader is a bit overwhelmed with all the thoughts that are appearing in their head. What if the world did end up like this? How could we emerge from this and still be able to move on? How can augmentations affect the human body? What is the line between human and robot? Though these questions are not actually designed to be provided because of the novel they are still there adding a very interesting affect to the novel.

Despite these questions they are not the theme of the book. There are three main themes that I could find. The first one is the struggle between right and wrong. In the novel the terrorist groups and gangs obviously play a role, but that role is not necessarily the bad guy. The cyber terrorist group the Juggernauts are able to justify most of their actions even though they are breaking the law. They claim that they are either protecting or stopping others whether they be a large cooperation that is hording money for themselves instead of helping the less fortunate and snuffing out jobs, and in some cases, lives as if they were insects, or a single person who is a step away from doing something terribly wrong.

The second theme is the dangers of the future. This is probably the most eviden

t one that is in the book but none the less it is still important. The future despite anyone’s hopes or dreams is an unknown, and as an unknown most are afraid, for good reason too. In this novel the reason to be afraid is because the world is crumbling. Some originally thought it would fall because a nuclear war, but in this novel the truth is much more terrifying. The world is falling apart because humans are killing each other and tearing one another apart by hand. Though this future is not set in stone it is still a possible idea, granted maybe it will be a little longer then the year the novel is set in.

The third theme is the corruption of human society. This theme refers a lot back to the theme the struggle between right and wrong and with out this theme there would be no dangers of the future. As stated previously the world is a mess. Everywhere the characters turn someone is striking a deal for an easy way out or someone is getting mugged or murdered for no reason except that they were in the way. One example is the group the Tyrants. As Ben Saxon learns and uncovers truth he finds that the Tyrants are just a hit man for a bigger, more sinister organization, one that plans on changing the world. Tyrants are killing innocents in some cases just because they can. This theme though not as obvious is a very important one as it ties them all together.

The Icarus Effect is well worth the read and extremely suspenseful as well as action packed. I highly recommend it to any sci-fi lover. With its twisting plot and detailed description of the future world plus its amazing action scenes it wins a 9 out of ten. Excellent read!

Helikaon from Troy Lord of the Silver Bow

Helikaon stars as the main character of this fictional take on the story of Troy. In the first novel Helikaon is a prince of Dardania with a deep dark past and unknown evils with in himself. Through out the novel the reader uncovers more history about the character and what happened in his past that made him the hero he became. Through this mysterious character we see many things but ten emotions stand out the most with in him.

Kindness is needed to make most heroes but sometimes it is a different kind then the one that is shown to your enemies. Helikaon tends to only show kindness to women and children and his friends. At the beginning of the novel Helikaon is in ancient day Cyprus on a hill worshiping the god Apollo when a young child comes up asking him to help her mother who is sick:

..."Please don't leave!" she cried. "Mother is sick"

He knelt down and lifted a heavy cloak from behind a rock, then, sitting beside her qrapped the garment around her shoulders. It was of the softest wool. "You came to the shrine seeking help for your mother? Has a healer visited her?"...

Him willing to help her alone shows kindness and giving her his cloak is even kinder.

Helikaon being a hero also has compassion but does not have as much compassion as one would think. Helping the girl was one sign of compassion but he also helped a warrior who had saved his life earlier named Argurios. Argurios was declared a traitor and assassins went after him he defeated them but took many wounds. Helikaon helped him and got him a doctor and saved his life. True compassion.

Fear is something all humans know, in fact maybe even all animals, to not have fear is

impossible. Helikaon has fear but it is buried deep with in him. His fear is of life.

..."Your mother threw herself off a cliff. You saw it.... "

Ever since he witnessed his mother jump in front of him and his father, king of Dardania, take him down to stare at the body Helikaon was frightened of death and became a weak child until a man named Odysseus came and helped him. Odysseus never helped to fully conquer the fear but helped in more ways then Helikaon could be grateful for. Helikaon conquered most of his fear.

Also all heroes need to be brave. When Helikaon was still not yet an adult his father was murdered and Dardania was thrown into chaos when Helikaon and his fathers new wife Halysia were unsure of who would take his place. Soldiers gathered as Helikaon approached the queen and gave her full power over his homeland. Doing such an act is uncountably courageous starting Halikaon's reputation for being a hero.

When times test only heroes stand out in the dark. For Helikaon his cleverness has saved him many times in battle. After a tragedy Helikaon set out after the killers and they massed on their boats. The battle happened on water and Helikaon predicted their strategy then did a risky but successful counter move before they attacked. Through this and secret fire weapons he won the day even though he was out numbered.

Helikaon though a warrior with many emotions still manages to stay calm. This has two traits in itself. Amazing self discipline and calmness. He demonstrates this many times in the book even when he is holding the head of his best friend and when he is staring at his most hated enemy he still stay calm. Who else can do this but heroes.

Those are all the good sides to this hero, but he has a dark side that in some cases is more dominant. When his father was assassinated Helikaon swore revenge on the killer but never found him. Years later when his best friends was tortured and murdered he swore to kill the murderer Kolanos. He then chased after him and made battle on the water. He took the captured enemy put them in one ship and burned them alive. That is vengeance hatred and ruthlessness. As well when his step brother was murdered and his step mother raped Helokaon set off after the killers. He found them and attacked one of their islands killing all the men and taking all the women and children for slaves. Helikaon's dark tortured souls lashes out when bad things happen to him from his twisted childhood but he has managed to save it mostly and has become more hero then villian.

Helikaon goes through many heart aches in the novel but not all is bad. Through his adventures he meets his one love, Andromache who is unfortunately promised to the hero of Troy Hektor. As Troy awaits his return Helikaon and Andromache spend time together, though it is awkward time and nothing happens. Then as the story reaches its climax Hektor is announced dead and Helikaon asks for Andromache's hand which she gives him. Later that day the palace is attacked by a traitor and a battle begins and leading the attack is Helikaon's quarry Kolanos. The few defenders are outnumbered and all seems lost when Hektor storms in and defeats the last of the enemy. Kolanos being an evil coward surrenders and the day is saved. All is well again except that Helikaon looses his love for Hektor returned and he is unwilling to hurt his friend. This opening novel sets out the field for the famous siege of Troy and its downfall.

December Reading Log

December Reading Log
The Eye of the Needle

This book is set during the years of World War 2 and takes factual events and adds a fictional twist or character to create a suspenseful heart-racing mystery novel. The main villain is a Nazi spy in England who is ruthless but seems perfectly normal in fact seems like the kind of guy you would want to meet. After several years of not being spotted the Nazi begins to suspect something, something that could lose him the war. The English anti-spy team has hacked into the communications, captured over half the agents in Britain, and found and tracked all the rest except one. Through a series of twists and turns this novel weaves an epic clash and unknown conclusions await every page.

I personally would not enter this action-packed novel for a few reasons. One someone dies all the time almost every other page, i don't want to die. Another reason is i simply don't want to be in the situations the characters are put in. Further more the events are no where near what i have experienced in real life. The book is set through out England one place i have longed to go but never had the chance to. So i can not connect this to my life either.

The character that is my favorite is a man named Tom who is described as “...had a face of leather and a huge pipe with a lid. He was shorter than she (one of the main characters), but wide, and he looked ridiculously healthy...” Tom lives on a small island to herd sheep for a rich family and is a simple man who is extremely friendly and nice. For these reasons i would enjoy being in his company. The rest of the characters are either old, lost too much to be human, or are down right killers.

In what i have read i can not catch any literary features either because i am to caught up in the historical/realistic plot or because i don't look hard enough. But in what i have read it is simply outstanding. The thing i pictured best was this high tense scene when the English spy-hunters found someone who knew who Die Nadel was and they were using him to act as a ticket collector on the train they thought he was on. Die Nadel, “assumed the worst, and prepared to deal with it” when he realized that he was being hunted. He hid between the train carriages and waited until the man came out. There he questioned him and then killed him with his signature weapon, a stiletto blade. This part was most vivid because of the way it was described and the setting was easy to imagine. The fear on Die Nadel’s face must of been one of complete horror at the thought of “they know his face.”

Unfortunately i can not compare this to any book i have read before. This is something new and something to be treasured. It all blends smoothly and is very enjoyable read. I highly recommend it.

ELR World War Z

BOOK #2

Reading log on World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

My book is based in the future where a disease, much like the Black Plague, sweeps across the globe. This disease is not like others, to be infected one must be bitten by an already infected victim. The symptoms are high fever, paling of skin, excessive bleeding, changing color of blood. After this the victim dies and becomes reanimated. The creature will lumber around unable of thought or speech, the only thing it does is feed on the living. These creatures move at a slow walking pace but will not tire and can only be killed by destroying the brain. These creatures are zombies, or the living dead. My book is about the war that happened after the outbreak based on interviews preformed by the author, Max Brooks, and he has arranged them in a chronological order so the future generations will have a knowledge on the “mistakes not to take that could have stopped the war in the first place.”

Though World War Z is written as if it had happened and with amazing realness (so much I believed that it had actually happened at some points in the text) it is an entirely fictional story (luckily). There is no such thing as living dead or such a plague, but the author probably has a good grasp of what would happen if an apocalypse should happen. He also gives out historical glimpses of past events fitting it in with his fictional novel. There is no way though this book is realistic.

There are many characters in this book since the main one Max Brooks is interviewing survivors about the war. Since there are loads of characters there are many different views on the subject and I was shocked at how well it was written and the different views were displayed. The character i most enjoyed though was a blind Japanese man who lost his sight during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in world war 2. I like this character and would honor his friendship because after a lifetime of misery and being the outcast he brought honor to his name during the breakout and fled to the mountains where he fought of hordes and hordes of men with his “ikupasuy” or “Ainu prayer stick.” Despite many depressing moments throughout his life he was a man when the moment came and restored Japan almost single handed. Though i might enjoy this character as a friend I still have a hard time connecting with any of the characters especially since the majority are older men or trained soldiers or even in one cases mentally scarred kid. It is hard to connect with such characters, most are war hardened with hard features learned over the coarse of the war.

I have not done or been in a situation like the ones descried nor would i want to be. The situations are scary and life threatening and not inviting to me. Even though a lot of characters are average ordinary people I still find it hard to find connections with my book and my life. Zombies “shambling down the street and breaking into houses” is something i do not wish to experience and is very hard to picture happening to my town. Equally I would not enjoy “jumping” into my book since I would most likely become over run and eaten alive by the walking plague.

Today I was reading about a Chinese man and his story of leaving “not deserting China” during the infestation as to “protect and continue” the way of the Chinese people by taking a submarine under the control of Captain Chen with the crews families. In his story i visualized this part were their submarine was hiding from another Chinese vessel that had orders to attack their ship and crew. Their submarine was on the bottom of the ocean hiding from all radar and other equipment the hunting sub might be using. When they were waiting at the bottom of the ocean they looked out through the scope and saw “Zombies hundreds of them, were swarming over the hull.” The way the author described this scene made me picture it the best today. And the way it fitted in with the rest was how the fall of great super power China affected all and this small first hand account added to the feeling that China and the world felt during this time. In this account I think the character will eventually have to take command since the Captain will either be eaten or commit suicide from depression and an overwhelming feeling. This is a guess at what will happen, when ever I have tried to guess there was something that took me by surprise changing my view on the subject, so I will not be surprised if I am wrong.

Though it is written in a first person interview style the author was still able to display irony. The human race always thought of themselves as above extinction but in this book they are so close to extinction it is hardly believable. He doesn't really use irony much more then that but in the beginning when a few outbreaks happen it foreshadows a global disaster that will endanger the human existence forever.

Though this book is a scare and a horror-like book it is still very enjoyable and a must read for advanced readers. I say advanced not because it is hard to read far from it i say advanced because younger audiences would not enjoy it or like the language. It flows nicely together and is a thrilling, captivating novel.