Monday 17 January 2011

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: The Demi-Monde: Winter - Rod Rees

Release Date: 13/01/11

SYNOPSIS:

EXPERIENCE THE ULTIMATE IN VIRTUAL REALITY. The Demi-Monde is the most advanced computer simulation ever devised. Created to prepare soldiers for the nightmarish reality of urban warfare, it is a virtual world locked in eternal civil war. Its thirty million digital inhabitants are ruled by duplicates of some of history's cruellest tyrants: Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust; Beria, Stalin's arch executioner; Torquemada, the pitiless Inquisitor General; Robespierre, the face of the Reign of Terror. But something has gone badly wrong inside the Demi-Monde, and the US President's daughter has become trapped in this terrible world. It falls to eighteen-year-old Ella Thomas to rescue her, yet once Ella has entered the Demi-Monde she finds that everything is not as it seems, that its cyber-walls are struggling to contain the evil within and that the Real World is in more danger than anyone realises.


REVIEW:

2011 is going to be a year of top quality reads if, the recent selection I’ve read is a cross section of releases is anything to go by. So far, there has been some great crime tales, some serious fantasy and now a science fiction story that just blew me away.

Contained within the pages of this tale by Rod Rees is a tale that has multiple storylines. Part Matrix, part Escape from New York, with a dash of Film Noir and a whole host of imagination. Beautifully written, this title also has a whole host of unforgettable characters which, when blended with a serious kick ass plot alongside a great sense of pace made this book a seriously guilty pleasure to enjoy. So much so that I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that others have hit the “One more chapter” phrase during reading. With over 500 pages the pace hardly lets up and flies by in a flash, so much so I expect a few jobs to have workers taking a day or two off due to lack of sleep. Just don’t hold us accountable if the boss catches you out.

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