Dagney Morgan, a sarcastic Department of Agriculture employee with an affinity for paperwork, has a chance run-in with a farmer covered in toxic chemicals, and walks away with a genetically modified baby, along with the seeds of a military-industrial conspiracy. Dagney and her makeshift family scramble to stay ahead of artificial soldiers and megalomaniacal businessmen long enough to reap the truths behind an international web of corruption and intrigue. They also stop for pie, at one point.
In this Indie science fiction/thriller you will find fun, action, mystery, and bizarre vegetable matter, and no more will be written about the vegetables as it would have to include too many spoilers.
The novel follows a science gone awry story line, which is carried along with an intensively funny and sharp dialogue, very much like ‘Men Who Stare at Goats’ by Jon Ronson. However, there are some more sensitive and serious interludes in the novel, and the Author writes these with just as much care as the scenes that had me chuckling down each page.
The main lead character is female, and wow what a character she is too, down to earth, ballsy, and not afraid to say what’s exactly on her mind. She also has a tender side (but don’t tell her I said so), and this is handled with great care as if the Author doesn’t want his lead to find out he knows her inner secrets. The other characters in the novel are also very well written, more like the folks you would come across on a day to day basis, if you moved in the circles in the novel. The characters are fleshed out enough to make us either love them or hate, and make the weirdly wonderful plot work and, even though there doesn’t seem to be too much depth to them, it doesn’t matter.
Nicolas Wilson’s background is in graphic novels (Barren Mind and Survival), and this comes through with expected and satisfying results. It enables him to make the imagery sharp and clear, whether we are reading about wild and sweeping landscapes or smaller, more intimate places. I also feel that his background helped immensely when writing about the more bizarre as he was able to translate this into the purely written genre very well.
A Word to those who are easily offended; crude language abounds in this novel, but for me that wasn’t an issue and neither were the sexual references, which include great helpings of innuendo, what fun. Some may feel that the Author may have overdone this aspect, and was not on hand shaking terms with restraint and discretion; but that’s what’s different about this book. It’s not intended to be restrained and not intended to be discreet.
My secret guilty pleasure is the graphic novel, and I was delighted to find all the aspects I love from them, bar the artwork, in a ‘regular’ book. This book moves, flows, entertains and by no means sticks to the rules that our far too politically world seems to be imposing on us now. If you want something totally different to keep you entertained, while at the same time making you think about things, this is the one for you. If you’ve never read a graphic novel, do it; if the graphic novel is not for you, read this instead.
There is so much more I want to write about this novel, but to do so would be to release some of it humour and plot into this blog, and it is worth so much more than the few lines I can give it without spoilers.
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