Review: An interesting case
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 12, 2014
A strange metal case is found outside the ISS – after it is transported to a US base, the case is opened, releasing an infection that causes increasing memory loss. After a week, those infected have lost a year of their lives. As the disease spreads across the world, civilisation starts to break down...  Yes, we're in end of the world territory here. If you've read The Death of Grass or Lucifer's Hammer then you may assume you know what's in store. But this apocalypse is unlike anything you'll have seen before; when our own memories are playing traitor, the world becomes an extraordinarily scary place. The book is set a year ahead. our world is bound together with electronic communications (which can be persuaded to keep working even when the world has gone to hell), so the author gives us not just one group of survivors but a number of groups, in contact by email and video, who are struggling to preserve their memories and evade infection.The characters are well-presented, interesting and believable. The effects of the virus are logically thought out. The book takes place over a period of about six months; it does not dwell on the horrors outside the survivors' enclaves, leaving those scenes mostly to the imagination.A few other faces appear and then vanish early on, hinting at the enormity of the disaster, but the core groups of survivors are the heart of the story.The most obvious gap in the novel's structure is any suggestion of the efforts being made to find a cure for the plague – the author mentions that there is something in the bloodstreams of those infected, but does not hint at steps being taken to fight it. Instead, he introduces a different occurrence to push the narrative forward – I won't spoil the story by revealing what that involves. Suffice it to say that after a slow mid-section, the novel picks up the pace again in the later chapters – but does not reach a conclusion. By the end of the book, the core characters have made significant decisions, but the results of those choices are the subject of the next book in the trilogy...I enjoyed book one of ARIA – it is well written, properly proof-read, intelligent and different from all the other end of the world scenarios I have seen before.