by Cyma Rizwaan Khan
Sci-fi/Dystopia
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/XLQ4CJiweQA
4 Stars
Blurb:
How do you survive in a world without hope?
And what will it turn you into?
Alien species are in control of the planet and Zyronian Citizens have no choice but to become slaves to both reigning species, the Zyre and the Khaltars. Life on Zyron for someone who is born a Citizen was bad enough but the constant riots within the regions have made survival impossible. So when Lane Volze, a twenty-two year old Citizen becomes the victim of a treacherous conspiracy, his brother Connor takes the help of resistance leader Jace Dyer and does everything in his power to get him out, but nothing is at it seems, and Connor keeps running into dead-ends. Lane on the other hand, struggles for survival in the prison from hell and is trying his best to come to terms with the fact that his life is over.
Will Connor get to the bottom of this conspiracy before it’s too late?
Review:
On the planet Zyron, if you're born a Citizen, that's all you can be. Citizens are the lowest class, lucky if they can get a poorly paid dead-end job and the unlucky ones are little more than slaves or have turned to crime as a way to make ends meet.
Connor Volze and his brother Lane have been alone since the death of their mother and Connor is a criminal, beholden to his crime boss, but he wants something better for his younger brother and tries to keep him out of that criminal underworld.
Framed for a murder he didn't commit, Lane is sent to the infamous prison of Black Wall, where few make it out alive and of those who do, no one is ever quite the same. For it is in Black Wall that the experiment of the title takes place. But what is the experiment? What do they want? And how did they know Lane's name? He wasn't arrested at random, he was targeted, but by whom and why?
Connor seeks the help of the resistance leader, Jace Dyer, to try and free Lane from the nightmare his life has become, but Jace Dyer is hiding secrets of his own too.
This was a fast paced book, the pages seem to turn themselves and I kept reading well into the night to see what was going to happen next. Connor and Lane were both sympathetic protagonists, despite their criminal dealings. Lane is tortured in prison, but it isn't overly graphic, you just get a sense of how horrible it was by his reactions to the things done to him.
It's a sci-fi book, but I didn't really get a sci-fi vibe from it at all. There was a bit of explanation of the different races and planets before the book started, I think that may have worked better if they were introduced at different periods throughout the book, because I couldn't really remember it all as I was reading the main section. There were some mentions of different technology, but nothing that said this was firmly a sci-fi book. It could have been set on Earth with any form of corrupt government or agency and it wouldn't have lost anything.
However, if you're after an intriguing tale, well-told, with characters you care about, you won't go far wrong with this one.
A great read.
Review copy from author.
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