Return of the convict
Subtitle: a novel of 97,500 words
By: William Alan Thomas
Publisher: [CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform]
Published: 2015
Place of publication: North Charleston, SC]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 302
ISBN-13: 9781519255082
Subjects: Ex-convicts; Time travel; Fiction
Description: In 2143, after the convulsive wars and climate-change disasters of the Sixth Great Extinction, Earth has largely been taken over by a one-world government spearheaded by the Indian people, who have also developed a breakthrough quantum computer, the Raina, which they've begun to worship as a goddess. Lucas Rivera ran afoul of government oppression by acting as a "ferryman," getting thousands of refugees to safety during the worst years. Sentenced to a Mars penal colony, where he acquired terminal cancer from radiation, the resourceful Lucas later returns to Earth to ruthlessly eliminate some old cronies and to find Dom Tessier, a state-raised youth in the process of becoming a "T-Man" (or "transformed man"), part of a social elite being wired to telepathically interface with other T-Men and the Raina. Lucas has long been Dom's secret benefactor, using his riches from his rescues to boost the boy's status in the ominously changing new world--but the convict's motivations aren't altruistic. In this era of genetic wonders, elders like Lucas can effectively data-dump their consciousness into carefully prepped human hosts like Dom, effectively rejuvenating themselves. But what if Dom (who narrates in alternating chapters), for all his conditioning, doesn't want to be Lucas' new body?