Review: Outstanding Futuristic Adventure
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 26, 2014
Note: A free copy of this book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.I honestly don’t know what word to use to describe this story.  Outstanding? Amazing? Phenomenal?  Perhaps I’ll just use all three.  It was also highly creative and original, exciting, suspenseful, and I truly didn’t want it to end.  I couldn’t put it down, but I tried to read slowly because I was enjoying it so much that I felt I needed to savor every page.The author created a future world where scientists developed a new nucleic acid, fredamine.  It was designed to alleviate a variety of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Multiple Sclerosis.  But there were also recessive gene traits which caused some children to be born with special gifts.  The children are called variants and are usually sent to a special school so that they will be with others like them.  It may also be because “normal” people don’t want to mingle with them.  The variants have formed an agency, the Guild, which acts to promote, protect and police the variant population.  Not all variants care to work for the Guild but some are available as contractors when special cases arise.One such man is Damien, a locator.  His ability to locate people is desperately needed by the Guild when over twenty students from the Western Academy have been reported missing.  The Academy is one of the two special variant schools in the US.  Damien suffers from OCD, and is neurotic and introverted as well.  When contracted for this job, he’s assigned a helper whose role is to guard Damien and provide muscle and fire power—literally, since Blaze is a sparker, a variant who can ignite fire from his fingers.Though resistant to having a partner, Damien finally agrees and the two set out to locate the students.  Unfortunately, the first two students Damien locates are dead.  At the site, the partners encounter a group of extremists in a “variant free zone” and chaos ensues with Damien losing his mind and beating one of the men to death with a shovel.  Fortunately, though slightly wounded, Blaze is able to subdue the others and Damien is able to summon a Guild rapid response team to the area to help with exhuming the bodies and securing the area.It’s through this first incident that Blaze finally sees the effect that Damien’s early life and neurosis have had on him mentally and emotionally.  Damien breaks down and shares a bit of his past with Blaze when he also discovers that he’s more at ease around Blaze than he ever has been with anyone else.  Moving onward on their quest to find more of the missing students, they discover an isolated camp run by Shudder, a variant who was once Blaze’s boyfriend and is now on the outskirts of the law, both from the Guild and the federal agencies.  But Shudder offers to help them in their quest and ultimately joins them, providing his own special talent— the ability to make the earth move when they need it to rescue the next group of students.Throughout this time, Blaze and Damien had been getting closer but Damien fears that Blaze still loves Shudder and that he’ll never be able to have a future with him.  On the final leg of their journey, Shudder has virtually collapsed from a head wound he received during the last rescue and has to be carried by Blaze as the little group comes upon the location of the final group of students.  The twist the story takes at this point is unexpected but perfectly fitting for these missing young variants.This story is so much more complex than my simple summary indicates. It just has to be read to be appreciated.  The physical journey to find these groups of students covers multiple states, and the author’s descriptions of our country after it had been devastated by war, famine, and disease is amazing.  The outcome for each group of students is highly detailed and the final destination of the last group of students found was a nice surprise.My heart broke for Damien as he said goodbye to Blaze, knowing that he could never have a long term relationship with this man, a man who deserved a more “normal” life partner.  His follow-up discussion with Dr. Parma, the head of the Guild, and the things we learn about Damien’s past throughout the story, just endeared him to me.  Do the guys get a happy ending?  Well yes, they do.  But it’s hard won and well deserved and, if you’re like me, you may shed a tear of happiness for these wonderful men at that point.I highly recommend this one to all lovers of M/M romance, as well as those who enjoy sci-fi futuristic post-apocalyptic adventures generated by an author with a vivid imagination and highly descriptive writing style.  You’ll be engaged from the very first chapter.  Don’t miss out on this one.