You have a clone with your backup memories. That is if you are rich enough or if you become a national hero by taking a bullet for the President. Rohnan Dooley is the later and the first to become Amortal . Now he returns to try to find out who murdered him but there is much more to the story.

Amortals is my first contact with Matt Forbeck’s writing and I am impressed but not surprised by the tight and action packed story after reading his bio. Matt also weaves thought provoking questions about individuality and identity into the story. I am definitely going to add him to my to-read authors.

The main character Dooley has been long on the job. 200 years in the Secret Service is a long time and he is starting to have second thoughts about it. But if he retires he loses his Amortality. The investigation soon ties in to his previous lives and to his estranged descendants in a way that further highlights the issues with being immortal.

Dooley is a man of action but he is also a national hero and the figure head for the Amortal Project so his murder draws public interest. Patron, his boss wants the matter resolved as soon as possible. Amanda his partner obviously knew his former self which highlights the problem with skipping backup for three months since he have no memories of her or the investigation leading up to his own murder. Amanda is also mortal which leads Dooley to consider the worth of his own life compared to someone with only the one.

It is a fast paced and action packed story that touches on murder cults, old enemies, love, assassination attempts, cover-ups, hidden agendas and a bigger picture. Agent Dooley channels Bruce Willis in RED, Die Hard and Dirty Harry while he tries to finds out what really going on.

The characters are well done and remind me of stories that gave me the same kind of feeling for the characters like Flash by L. E. Modesitt Jr or The Puppet Master by Robert A. Heinlein.

There is no mistake behind that Amortal’s spelling is so close to Amoral in my mind. This book isn’t about the murder mystery. It is about the bigger picture. But it is still good action. It was a book hard to put down. I read it more or less in one go.

Amortals is a high concept techno thriller that has been a delight to read and I would like to highly recommend it both to thrill seeking and cerebral readers of science fiction.

Information

Title: Amortals
Author: Matt Forbeck
Genre: Science Fiction
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Angry Robot
Copy: Review copy from the publisher

Order from: Amazon US | UK

Today you die. Today you are reborn. Today you hunt the man who killed you. It’s Lee Child vs. Altered Carbon in a high-tech blast of tough-as-nails future thrills.

Matt Forbeck arrives as the new king of high-concept – with a blockbuster action movie in a book. In the near future, scientists solve the problem of mortality by learning how to backup and restore a persons memories into a vat-bred clone. When Secret Service agent Ronan “Methusaleh” Dooley is brutally murdered, he’s brought back from the dead to hunt his killer, and in doing so uncover a terrible conspiracy.

FILE UNDER: Science Fiction [Future Thriller / Cheat Death / Rogue Agents / Who Killed Who?]

Damage Time is a classic noir at first glance. Detective Pervez (Pete) Shah is drinking in a bar when gorgeous dame Aurora Debonis enters in need of his help and after a night in his place she disappears and a body is found. It has some of the classic themes of the genre ‘The Setup’, ‘The Fame Fatale’ and ‘The Boss’, but there is so much more to the story and Colin does a good job in making it all come alive.

Much of this story centers on memory reading or memory ripping technology. Pete is an expert at finding subtle clues in memory recordings. He is the best Memory Association Specialist in the NYPD. New kind of criminals use the technology to erase memories of their crimes from their victims and then selling selected parts on the Web. The mind changing technology also made me reflect a great deal on what makes a personality and what makes ones identity because here it gets a bit fluid. It made me think, I like that in a book.

The protagonist Pete is getting a bit long in the tooth for the kind of work he does but he does it well. Being a bit older is something I can relate to and it is also a refreshing change from the usual twenty-something.

I am impressed by the vivid and subtle world building. Colin uses small strokes to paint a big canvas indeed. There is no info dumps in this story.

Pete is a halfway lapsed Muslim, something that still seems to be able to stir up aggression among the people in New York. In his world money converts to calories, what is left of US just got its ass kicked in the Middle East by the Arabic League, the interest on the US national debt is larger than their BNP, a seceded California is behind a huge wall and inside Homo Superior Californius go about their own mysterious affairs (much like they do today?).

As most good stories it takes care of the characters. There is even some romance. The action gets personal and close-up and it still affect me emotionally when I think about it.

Damage Time is a gritty near-future noir involving chilling mind ripping technologies, thrilling action and a memorable hero. Colin Harvey is a new writer to watch. I wonder what he is up to next. I know I want to read it.

Information

This is the second Novel I read by Colin Harvey. He lives in Bristol in the south-west of England with his wife Kate and spaniel Alice. His first fiction was published in 2001, since when he has written novels, short stories and reviews, edited anthologies and judged the Speculative Literature Foundation’s annual Gulliver Travel Research Grant for five years. Colin’s reviews appear regularly at Strange Horizons and he is the feature writer for speculative fiction at Suite101.

Title: Damage Time
Author: Colin Harvey
Genre:
Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Angry Robot
Copy: Copy from the publisher

Order: Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

It’s 2050 and sea-levels have swamped today’s coastal regions. New York City is protected by tidal barriers and the USA is bankrupt.

Detective Pervez (Pete) Shah serves with the NYPD’s Web Crimes Division as a Memory Association Specialist. When he’s accused of murdering a glamorous woman in a bar, he must find the killer, save himself … and the world.

FILE UNDER: Science Fiction [Future Crime / Memory Specialist / Run for your Life / World in Danger]

THE GATES – PREMIERES SUNDAY, JUNE 20 (9:00-10:00 p.m.) – Nestled inside a private mountain community are The Gates. The image of perpetual suburban bliss, each street is lined with perfectly manicured homes protected by the massive iron gates, but a dark and delicious secret is buried just beneath the surface of this picturesque neighborhood. (ABC/STEVE DIETL)

This show looks good. I am sorry for the quality of the video. You can read what I know about the show in a post I made earlier: The Gates Open June 20 This Summer on ABC.

Thanks yixing1192010 for the video and thanks dh-central.net for the pictures!

Title: The Bloodstained Man
Author: Christopher Rowley
Series: Netherworld 2
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Tor, June 8, 2010
ISBN-13: 9780765323897
ISBN: 0765323893
Order: Tor | Amazon US | UK | B&N

Presenting Heavy Metal Pulp, a new line of novels combining noir fiction with fantastic art featuring the theme, story lines, and graphic styles of Heavy Metal magazine.

Following the explosive events of book one, Pleasure Model, Detective Rook Venner, Mistress Julia, and Plesur are on the run from the government troops trying to kill them and from a shadowy group that wants to capture Plesur alive for its own purposes. What secrets have been implanted in Plesur’s head—and why are they worth killing for?

Caught between these two powerful rivals, the trio hides out in the lawless New Jersey territory. Betrayed by gang members looking to collect the bounty on Plesur’s head, the three are separated, and Rook and Mistress Julia find themselves in mortal danger. Julia, given as a prize to a gang member, finds herself in chains, but not without her own means of fighting back. Rook, forced to fight for his life in the gang’s bloodthirsty gladiatorial games, must stay alive long enough to rescue Plesur, but time is running out.

The Bloodstained Man is a fast-paced, adrenaline-filled ride through a future where pleasure has a price, and Plesur holds the key to a secret that could rock the country to its very core.

No cover or blurb yet for Money Shot but here is the data.

Title: Money Shot
Author: Christopher Rowley
Series Netherworld 3
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Tor, November 9, 2010
ISBN-10: 0765323907
ISBN-13: 978-0765323903
Order: Tor | Amazon US | UK | B&N

The Erasmus System is a sprawling realm of slavery, smugglers, spies—and constant, creeping decrepitude. Here everyone who is not part of the ruling Four Families is a slave of one kind or another. But the Guardians, a special-forces branch inside the United World Government for Earth, have deemed Erasmus a “hot spot.” Somehow, it is believed, this failing colony intends to launch a war upon the solar system.

Ex-Field Commander Terese Drajeske, now a mother of three, has been called back to active duty and sent to Erasmus, ostensibly to investigate the murder of her colleague—and friend—Bianca Fayette. At first blush, the death defies explanation: Bianca was immortal. But beneath that single murder lies a twisted foundation of deceptions. Suddenly Terese is plunged into a vortex of shattered lives, endemic deceit, and one dreadful secret. In this society without hope, someone has put into motion a plan that will cast humanity into chaos. And Terese, who has given up her family and her sanity to prevent war, may be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice….

Bitter Angels is a story about hope and the belief that you might end all conflicts without killing. It is  not an  especially military science fiction if you with that mean soldiers, technology and battles.

It is a story about friendship. Bianca was Terese Drajeske’s best friend and mentor and when she dies under mysterious circumstances Bianca leaves her husband David and her three daughters to find her killers and stop the threatening war that she was trying to uncover. But it’s not a blind friendship, Terese soon find reasons to doubt Bianca’s motives.

It is also about the bound between three survivors from Oblivion, one a pilot in the security forces, one a doctor and one a renegade smuggler. And how that bound affect the fate of a whole system.

It is about how peace keepers sometimes keeps a morally wrong status quo for fear of  something worse. The Blood family keep the Erasmus system in slavery and economic depression. Trying to remove them might lead to war so the Guardians don’t.

I liked the mystery part, but it took a bit too long to get to when it started to make sense, around page 300. I wouldn’t mind if the author made faster work of that. It left only 150 pages for the real action and the characters to grow.

Now and then I felt it was too much talks, meetings and dead ends that didn’t bring the story forward, but I might have missed a point or so. It slowed it down from excellent to good in my mind. Bitter Angels is a good mystery-spy science fiction and if you like that it’s a book for  you.

Tuesday 9th

Past Life

Looks like an interesting new tv series built on a book by M.J. Rose The Reincarnationist. M.J. Rose is best known as an author of erotic thrillers according to  Publishers Weekly.

There are four main characters:

• Dr. Kate McGinn (Kelli Giddish) researcher and true believer
• Price Whatley (Nicholas Bishop) former NYPD now Kate’s partner
• Dr. Malachi Talmadge (Richard Schiff, The West Wing) her mentor
• Dr. Rishi Karna (Ravi Patel, Scrubs) is the rookie in the group

Have you ever experienced déjà vu or met someone you thought seemed familiar? Do you believe in karma, fate or love at first sight?

Psychologist Dr. Kate McGinn and her partner, former detective Price Whatley, attempt to help Noah, a teen suffering from regression episodes repressed memories from a past life in which Noah remembers a previous life’s kidnapping and murder. Together with Dr. Malachi Talmadge and Dr. Rishi Karna, McGinn and Whatley work to track down the perpetrator of a crime committed 14 years earlier in the “Pilot”

Returns and Finales

Thursday 4th
Bones 5th season winter finale

Thursday 11th
Past Lifes - ordinary time slot
Supernatural – going on hiatus until March 25
Vampire Diaries - going on hiatus until March 25

13- 28 The black hole of Winter Olympics

Wendsday 17
Leverage 2nd season finale

ps. I didn’t forget Lost, I am just not interested.

It is almost like Cluedo. Professor K did it in the library type.

Becket is clearly not impartial either, especially when she begins to suspect Kyra.

Kyra wonders if she is marrying the right guy. So she meets up with Castle on this roof top (picture) …

One of the thing i like with this show is the good natured easy to love characters. I wonder how many seasons we have to wait for Becket and Castle to have a go at bickering bliss?

I usually don’t write of every episode in a series. But I feels so good about the Closer.

Brenda and Fritz are trying out their skiing outfits when she gets a visit about an overturned case she don’t know about. Provinsa recived the case a month ago beliving it to be a walk in the park. His old partner on the case only have to take the stand and the judgement would stand.

But when he turns up he is a she. His partner has had a sex change operation and refuses to even play a man  on the stand. More than usual confusion follows.

A lightly dressed bare-footed marine is found dead by a tree, nothing says Christmas like a young couple fooling around in the snow stumbling on that.

Gibbs daddy comes and visits. Gibbs still have daddy issues. And this time his daddy seems to have something on his heart.

The victim was newly converted to Islam. He left a young wife, a dad who is a former Marine officer now a chaplain and his younger marine brother Patrick behind. With Islam, the Marine Corps, Christianity, father issues and the usual team bickering it’s 45 minutes of bliss.

Enjoy the picture of the gorgeous Ziva (Cote de Pablo). Feel free to click it as many times as you like.

A Sizzle Reel is an eye-catching video showcase that condenses a large collection of media into a thrilling and effective communication piece. 

SLINGERS from Mike Sizemore on Vimeo.

Synopsis from Mikes blog (might change):

Slingers is set in the year 2960 A.D., following mankind’s first interplanetary war. Humanity is now clustered into a finite, but still vast section of the universe known as Enclosed Space. Humanity won the war with an aggressive alien enemy, but at a cost. The way back to Earth is now cut off by an impassable barrier – a side effect of the blast that finally pushed the enemy back.

The show takes its name from a group of people thrown together on board an experimental spacecraft that is capable of Slinging itself to any point in space. In theory it’s the only craft capable of getting home. In reality the crew are using it to carry out a series of high tech heists and get even with those who are now exploiting their positions in the post war hierarchy.

Dominic ‘DM’ Monroe, a special ops war veteran becomes the de facto leader of this small team of thieves who rail against the decision by military command to just ‘stay where they are and make the best of it’. They’re determined to get home and if that means breaking a few rules and picking up a lot of enemies along the way then so be it.

Mighty impressive sizzle. hope it make it to the small screen. Something to look forward to in 2010

It is nice to have Brenda back for Christmas. The Closer is one of my favorite TV series.

Fritz brings Brenda a kitten called Joe when Brenda’s telephone rings…

A kid has been killed in a gang hang out. He is the brother of another gangs leader and a gang war is around the corner. Brenda have her usual run ins with the chief and other police authorities.

They discover that the victim have been using a girls id and credit cards. The girl is missing so they bring in the mother. The mother makes a shocking statement …

It’s two years after Necropath and Jeff has married Sakura and they await their first child when Jeff gets an offer he can’t refuse. He is back as a telepathic detective and soon he is investigating murders connected with Malloy. The plot thickens  and his telepathic abilities and insight in the workings of Bengali Station serve him well when he has to find the urchin connected to the case.

The finale is a showdown on the planet Malloy where he have to stop a genocide.

At first I imagined the protagonist as a female; it was not until the finale I realized he wasn’t.

Link: http://aliettedebodard.com/bibliography/online-fiction/the-lost-xuyan-bride/

Oh, Brenda is such a hard ass interrogator, love that about the show. This season seems a bit more human and less smooth in a good way.

Dollhouse will be officially renewed on Monday by Fox. The catch is that Jay Whedon had to agree to a reduced budget.

Better of Ted has also been renewed.

Three of my favorites renewed.

• Whitout a trace is a great show suffering from low ratings. It would be a shame if it went with such a great cast. Canceled
• Cold Casesuffer the same low ratings and to be honest I wouldn’t mind seeing it go. It doesn’t really do anyting for me. Unofficially renewed
• Knight Rider is also on the block. It’s so bad its almost good. Canceled
• Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles might survive if the movie strikes up some interests. But with FOX you never know.Canceled
• My Name is Earl: It is time to go. TBD
• Kings deserves to live, dammit! but it looks bleak. Canceled
• Castle is a new show with a cast to love. It should get a second season. Renewed
• Reaperwas resurected once and my guess is its going. I hope not though. Canceled
• Dollhouse need to sort it self out. Not likely to get another season. Renewed
• Chuckis propably the show I am going to miss most if it goes. Ratings are not good though. Renewed

Shows that should be cancelled in my opinion:

• Lost was good the first season and have been downhill ever since. Let it rest in peace.
• All reality shows should be canceled in favor for scripted series. They will rot your brain, hear my words.
• In treatment: I can’t understand they renewed that show

For reference: Check out Brilliant But Canceled Scifi and Supernatural Shows

Dollhouse
This series still leaves me undecided. I think it is because after 9 episodes I still haven’t built a relationship with the characters. But I guess that it is hard as they get different personalities every episode. Of course Eliza and the other actives are gorgeous. The problems a technology like this would create should be a good ground for a TV series. But this one needs to find some kind of path. It is all over the place at the moment.

Castle ***Newish***
I really like the characters in Castle. It still remind me of other shows so maybe its not that original. But it is fun.

Southland ***NEW***
New cop series in the footsteps of Shield with a bit of O.C. mixed in. Edit: It got canceled then moved to another network.

Ghost Whisperer
Still goes strong, and back to the Ghosts now that Sam remembers and are back with Melinda.

The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency ***NEW***
Botwanas first female detective series is something else. Differently paced than most TV series.

Harper’s Island ***NEW***
New horror series with an intresting cast from shows like Jake 2.0, Eureka, Veronica Mars among others. It starts up with an uncel tied to the propeller…

Roommates ***NEW***

After a few episodes I find it a bit vanilla. At the moment not a keeper.

Precious Ramotsweis the proprietor of the Agency
Mma Makutsi is her sidekick.

In the pilot they look for an Afro American lady’s son that has been missing for 10 years and some local burglaries.

There is a bit of overplay here and there but there are also some really good actors too. The photo is great. The main characters are likable and interesting.

The series are built on Alexander McCall Smiths novels.

imho the British TV series are a bit more ‘real’ than American but this one feels British.

Now it feels like Castle could be here for the long run, Its that good. (famous last words if it gets canned after 4 episodes)

I have to rethink what i wrote in “Murder she wrotesque“

S. celebrates “Sweet 16″ today! He will so kill me for that :-)

First episode is about a Murderer that copies murders from Castles books. I don´t know what to think of the first episode partly because the report between Richard and Kate felt a bit fake. Maybe its just me.

Nathan is known from FireFly (a personal favorite) and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog