Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Silent Army-James Knapp

The Silent Army
James Knapp
Roc, Oct 5 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780451463616

In a dark and bleak future, science has progressed to the point where the deceased can be revived and function mentally with recall of their past though their bodies remain dead. Revivors are used as soldiers fighting endless wars on the other side of the world and nanotech stops decay and repairs. Samuel Fawkes is a Revivor who is battling the establishment because he believes that reprogrammed memories are part of the population and can only be accessed when a person dies and becomes a Revivor.

He goes one step further as he thinks a solid data base will back up his theory that a shadow government controls the minds of most f the population. Fawkes, who though a Revivor, controls all the other Revivors, which means he has an army he is amassing while obtaining twelve nuclear bombs that he intends to explode to make a statement. FBI Agent Nico Wachalowsloski is assigned to find the bombs and other weapons of mass destruction while other operatives look for the ship importing Reviveors from foreign locations.

Military zombies are not a new concept (see World War Z by Max Brooks), but made fresh due to the lead adversaries as Fawkes may be a reanimated corpse but is also a strategic and operational thinker, and Nico believes Revivors have feelings. Heroic Nico especially risks his life to save a friend and dreads the confrontation that he knows is coming between him and Fawkes on a logical level and on a personal level the love of his life Faye Dasalia who is a loyal to Fawkes the Revivor. Readers will enjoy this science fiction as caring Nico believes Samuel is a terrorist while on the contrary Samuel believes he is a freedom fighter.

Harriet Klausner

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