Review: Maintains the tempo.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2012
Exit 9 is the second book in the Project Eden series, and the author has managed to maintain the same high tempo that we liked in 'Sick'. This novel can act as a stand alone book (compared to the first novel), but it is strongly recommended that one reads the series chronologically.The story continues and builds up from where it was left in the first novel. Project Eden is well and truly on its way to being implemented - the radical people behind the Project convinced that killing 99% of the Earth's human population, while saving only the balance roughly 1% who are meritorious to act as seeds for the future, is the only way to save humanity from self-destruction. The Project has been in the making for decades, and while the episode in 'Sick' dealt with a single aspect of the Project, namely trial testing, 'Exit 9' narrates the immaculate and exhaustive planning that has gone into the Project to make it successful, ending on the point of the "enter" button of the launch systems on the Implementation Day (that is, the day on which the killer virus will be released simultaneously around the world in different countries and cities). The novel's chapters begin as a countdown, each Chapter being closer to the Implementation Day. It is up to the 'Resistance', of which Daniel Ash is also a part, to attempt to throttle the evil designs of Project Eden.Though one may find Ash an important character, he is not the sole protagonist. There are various other characters, some within the Resistance, while others outside of it, that find an equal mention in the narrative. Unlike the first novel, which can be a complete stand-alone book, this novel ends abruptly at a particular juncture, and as a reader you will have to read the third book of the series in order to find out what happens next.Will I be reading the third book of the series to find out whether the "enter" key of the launch system's computer was pressed or not? Oh, yes!