The Plague Forge, by Jason Hough

Skyler and crew are back for the final installment of Jason Hough's Dire Earth Cycle.  If you read his The Darwin Elevator and The Exodus Towers, you will be eager to dive into The Plague Forge.  If you haven't, well what are you waiting for!  This is fun, action-packed, original sci-fi!

The alien events of the first two books--the arrival of the alien ship, the elevator, the plague--set the stage for the penultimate event, the arrival of a new, much larger ship, which sets up a second elevator and sends smaller ships to several spots around the planet.  In The Plague Forge, Skyler and his friends from Exodus are in a race with Grillo and the crazy Jacobites to gather the alien artifacts in preparation for the final alien event, whatever that might be.

Of course, along the way, they have to kill a bunch of subhumans, take perilous journeys around the world, and face the mysteries of alien technologies.  Hough's plot never slows the pace, his characters are believable and likable (and in some cases thoroughly hatable!), and the alien speculative element is top-notch.  This is a solid ending to a thoroughly enjoyable trilogy.  One word of caution: The Plague Forge would be considerably less enjoyable without first having read the first two books.  I know you'll join me in looking forward to what springs next from the imagination of Jason Hough!



Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Exodus Towers, by Jason Hough

A few weeks ago, I posted a review of The Darwin Elevator, the first book in Jason Hough's Dire Earth Sequence.  As I noted then, I think it's pretty cool that he is releasing this trilogy in rapid succession.  Book 2, The Exodus Towers, picks up where The Darwin Elevator left off.  Hough continues the hard-hitting action, brings the aliens more into the picture, and presents a whole new set of human conflicts.

In a follow-up alien event, a second space elevator appears in South America.  Skyler and a few others separate from the Darwin Elevator to establish a new colony.  Soon they face a rogue band of immunes, who try to take over the colony.  Then a new form of subhuman, enhanced by alien technology, shows itself.  Facing these new foes and trying to figure out how the human race can survive adequately occupy the time of the Exodus colony.

Meanwhile, back in Darwin, the Jacobites, a religious cult, have taken over the whole place, first through wily political maneuvering, then by force.  Skyler and company are working against the clock, knowing the Jacobite's desire to control both elevators, and knowing that there are more alien events coming, in quicker succession than the last one.

In terms of forecasting technological and societal developments, an important part of any sci-fi, Hough makes a couple of interesting points, both of which play into the story.  First, I noticed that in Hough's future earth, technology as a whole didn't seem adequately advanced for a setting 250 years in the future.  The main reason for this is that Moore's Law, which predicts exponential growth of processing power, proves to have its limits, and processing power plateaus.  Second, China outpaces the West, leaving Western Europe and the U.S. in their economic dust.  Why?  Chine embraced nuclear power, developing safer, more powerful, and longer lasting forms of it, so that "while Europe and America struggled to attach a solar panel to every roof and burned every last drop of oil, China and the developing world suddenly had no energy problem to speak of."  Soon, "Europe was still in catch-up mode, America was a distant memory."

There are a couple of spots where the story drags or skips without a lot of explanation, and some convenient plot elements thrown in, but, hey, it's fiction.  Altogether this is an exciting page turner, and the story adds to the epic feel of the Dire Earth sequence.  And the great news: only 4 short weeks until book 3, The Plague Forge, is released!

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

The Darwin Elevator, by Jason Hough

The Darwin Elevator, the new sci-fi novel by first-time author Jason Hough, is full of cool science, mysterious alien artifacts, intense action, and plenty of surprises.  In a near-future earth, an alien ship arrives in Earth orbit and extends a line anchored in Darwin, Australia, creating a space elevator.  Scientific and economic progress are given a brief boost, as we finally gain the ability to move resources into orbit inexpensively.  The good fortune is short-lived, however, as a few short years later another alien ship arrives, bringing with it a plague that renders all of Earth, except for a few square miles around Darwin, uninhabitable.  Humanity is divided between residents of Darwin and the Orbitals, the few who live in space stations along the elevator.

Skyler, one of a tiny percentage of humans immune to the plague, is captain of a scavenger ship.  He and his crew travel around the world gathering useful materials for use by Darwin's residents and the Orbitals, while they fight off the subhumans, people who have succumbed to the plague.  This precarious balance between the Orbitals and the Earth-bound humans, sustained by scavenging, desalinization of ocean water, and space-station-based agriculture, becomes more and more strained, to the point of armed conflict.  Skyler is caught in the middle.

Part of me acknowledges that The Darwin Elevator is not high-brow literature, and it may not even be satisfying to fans of pure, hard sci-fi.  But in my mind, Hough writes well and provides exactly what this sort of novel calls for: likable but flawed heroes you can root for (male and female), really bad bad guys, cool speculative science, engaging action, and aliens waiting offstage, hopefully to make an appearance in later volumes.

Speaking of later volumes, The Darwin Elevator is book one of three in the Dire Earth Sequence.  I like the fact that Hough is releasing the three books in rapid succession.  I, for one, am eager to start reading book two!

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!