Skip navigation

Tag Archives: immortality

Rubicon: A Review

J.S. Dewes’ latest science fiction novel, Rubicon, opens with a bang as our protagonist is forced to kill her three squad mates and then herself. Specialist Adriene Valero wakes up almost immediately afterward, her consciousness having been automatically downloaded into a new body back at headquarters.

Rezoning, as the process is called, has been standard procedure for soldiers fighting on the front lines against the Mechan forces. It allows humanity to avoid being captured and utilized as a host for a Mechan unit, a process called hybridization. If you’re under imminent threat of capture, zone out. Better to die by your own hand (or a fellow soldier’s) than to play host to an alien robot consciousness until your body gives out.

After rezoning into her 96th “husk” since the beginning of her service, Adriene is ready for it to all end. Anything for a chance to be mortal again. But instead of being sent back to the front lines with the rest of her squad, she’s pulled out of her company, promoted, and shipped off to a new unit. She’s been deemed a good fit for an elite crew of soldiers outfitted with special Virtual Intelligence implants called Rubicons, and assigned to be the pathfinder of one of their advance recon squads.

After a quick training on the use of the Rubicon implant in her brain, Adriene has to adjust to the idea of someone else sharing her head, privy to her thoughts whenever the unit is active. On the squad’s first mission out together, they’re ambushed by Mechan drones. With yet another rezone on the line, Adriene taps into an unknown function of her Rubicon implant, accessing functions that shouldn’t be possible.

With the knowledge that her Rubicon implant may be unique, Adriene is soon forced to face a choice. On the line: her chance to finally end her rezone cycle and the fate of all that remains of humanity under the unsleeping eye of the Mechans. Then again, Adriene may have more in common with the Mechans than anyone has ever realized.

Rubicon is a phenomenal piece of military science fiction that’s perfect for fans of Halo, Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein), Old Man’s War (John Scalzi), The Light Brigade (Kameron Hurley), or Edge of Tomorrow. It’s out on shelves today, and you should most definitely check it out. Dewes has done a great job of hooking me with her writing, and I’m eager for more.

My utmost thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for providing an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: A Review

You’ve met Addie LaRue. You’ve met her a thousand times, and you’ll meet her a thousand more, and you’ll never remember her.

You might hang on to a trace of her. Some faint, lingering tune she hummed in the hours you spent together will come back to you, and you’ll have no idea where it started. You’ll paint a picture of a girl with seven freckles on her face, a constellation that you know you never saw in the night sky, but a pattern that tiptoes around your brain for the rest of your life.

You know Addie LaRue, though you never heard her name. She goes by so many, she can’t even keep track of which one she told you. It doesn’t matter. You’ll turn away from her for a split second, and when you see her again, it’ll be as if she never existed to you before. Out of sight, out of mind.

Addie LaRue can be seen, but not remembered, even by film. Addie LaRue is a living ghost. Addie LaRue… is cursed.

When she was young, Addie LaRue was engaged, but she was not in love. Fleeing from an arranged marriage, Addie pleaded to whatever gods might have heard her. In her desperation, she made a mistake. “Never pray to the gods that answer after dark,” she had been warned. But night had fallen, and her prayer was heard, and a bargain was struck.

Now, three centuries have passed. Addie has traveled the world, learning to survive on her own. Three centuries with no one able to say her name, save for the dark being who came to her on that darker night, and who returns on occasion to see if she is tired of being forgotten. Three centuries to live as little more than a fleeting shadow.

From the fields and cities of France, Addie eventually made her way to New York, a bustling place just perfect for her to blend into. She grew comfortable there, pushing at the delicate edges of her curse to leave seed ideas in the minds of artists. “She has scattered herself like breadcrumbs, dusted across a hundred works of art.” Still, the real Addie was just as easily and quickly forgotten.

Until she wasn’t.

One day, Addie met Henry, a young bookseller. Against all odds, and in defiance of everything Addie had come to learn in 300 years, Henry remembered her. Somehow, he remembered her, and her carefully built world twisted beneath her. Soon, she is falling for Henry, and wondering if this might be what love feels like.

But Addie isn’t the only person in the world to have made a desperate plea, and she’s not the only one to have had it answered in an unexpected way. Now, everything is poised to change forever, and Addie must decide how much she is willing to risk in order to save man who remembers.

Victoria Schwab has crafted another fantastic world, equally as wondrous as the myriad Londons explored by her other heroines. This book has had my heart for months, and now it can have yours as well.

Today, Addie belongs to the world. Go find her. May you never forget her. I know I won’t.

My most sincere thanks to NetGalley for an eARC of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in exchange for an honest review.

The Immortal Question

“The Immortal Question”

What would you do with immortality?
If you knew that you would never die?
Would you travel the world, see what
Wonders others only read about?
Follow the paths of your favorite
Writers, and eat at the same little Paris
Cafés that once hosted Hemingway?

Would time lose its meaning to you
If you found that you could never die?
Would the days and weeks and months
Years centuries blend together and
Cease to have an impact short of
Reminding you who you had loved and
Lost along that long way?

Who would you bring close to you,
Knowing you’d have to watch them die?
Would you choose lovers with caution,
Or give yourself over to the throes
Of passion over and over again? Would
You even try to remember them
After they were gone from your side?

What would you choose to be
If you believed that you would never die?
Would you walk the narrow way and
Strive to find a balance between evil
And good? Or would you hurl yourself
Headlong, choosing one side or
The other to prove that neither exist?