Rising Tide - Rajan Khanna

Rising Tide

Rajan Khanna

Pyr, Oct 6 2015, $17.00

ISBN: 9781633881006

In North America though he knows he did the right thing by saving the hidden city of Tamoanchan from raiders, airship captain Ben Gold hurts over the loss of his vessel Cherub that was destroyed when he did his first ever heroic deed (see Falling Sky).  Instead of a hero’s welcome, Ben awakens from his myriad of injuries amazed to find his close friend Malik alive; as he thought his buddy died.  Irate with his former BFF for abandonment during a crisis, Malik holds him prisoner while also incarcerating Ben’s beloved Miranda

Using Miranda as a pawn, Malik demands Ben do his bidding in the wasteland or else his scientist girlfriend dies.  Miranda has been working on a cure to the pandemic plague that turned much of mankind into the Feral beasts.  She wants to test her elixir; but needs Ben to rescue her team.  To do that, they must escape from Malik at a time when a new deadly disease followed by invaders attack Tamoanchan occurs.

The second Ben Gold futuristic post-apocalyptic thriller continues the escapades of an anti-hero who prefers flight over fight though his love for Miranda has him continually breaking the family Golden Rule of save yourself at all times.  The stark Khanna realm is filled with Feral zombies, mad friends, terrible diseases that made the planet’s desolate surface deadly and the air outside of fortresses treacherous, and horrific marauders as if The Walking Dead raced into a steampunk world.

Harriet Klausner