Author: Simon Morden
Publisher: Orbit Books
Rating: 3 and a half stars
He had one more chance. He could turn his back, make good his escape, disappear into the crowd. She could work her own salvation out from here.
Petrovitch reached out a hand, and hers slapped into it, palm against gritty palm.
Samuil Petrovitch is a survivor. He survived the bombs falling on St. Petersburg and made it to the London Metrozone-one of the last free cities. He's lived this long because he's a man of rules and logic. For example, getting involved = a bad idea. But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking about it. Before he can stop himself, he's saved the daughter of the richest man in London. And clearly saving the girl = getting involved. Now, the equation of Petrovitch's life is looking increasingly complex. Russian mobsters + Yakuza + something called the New Machine Jihad = one dead Petrovitch. But Petrovitch has a plan-he always has a plan-he's just not sure it's a good one.
A combination between gun-shooting, self-operating car, advanced technology, run-for-your-life across the streets and Russian curses, you got Equations of Life by Simon Morden. This is a fast-paced, page-turning, full-with-action kind of story about a Russian young man who hid himself from his past in Metrozone - formerly known as London - in post-Armaggedon world. Sam Petrovich preferred to lay low and concentrate only on working on his equation and his passion for science, until he saved a girl who happened to be the daughter of a business/mafia tycoon. Suddenly all eyes on him and everywhere he went, he stumbled upon either Japanese tycoon's man, cops, or Ukraine's gangster.
Reading this felt like watching an action movie, the one that somehow Hollywood able to pull it off and not butchered it into a mediocre action-flick. A smart action movie. Petrovitch is a smart and witty guy; sometimes he can be too bold but I guess that's a right formula for action main character. From the outer world's eye he is just a regular student. He's not the typical of your hero, but not exactly anti-hero either. One thing that add more interest to the story is that Petrovitch has heart problem (literary) so on the brick of dying because of heart failure, Petrovitch had nothing to lose to go all out saving Metrozone. Because I have no knowledge on science the way Petrovitch does, I barely understand all the geek talks, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the book. Though there's one thing that bothered me; sometimes Petrovitch talked in Russian and because my ability in understand Russian is lower than mine in understand cat's talk, I pretty much clueless. I read the egalley so I hope they will add the translation in the finished copy.
This book will appeal to sci-fi lovers, action lovers and dystopian lovers, but if you expect something romantic will happen in this book, you will be disappointed. There's a minor romance but really minor, this is a YA that was written by male author so no mooning and love struck, focus of the book is on saving Metrozone and the author stick with it till the end. This is part one of the series. I'm going to read the second book soon (I have the egalley in me) and will review it. I can't wait to read another Sam Petrovitch's adventures!
In this book, Morden didn't give explanation about the Armageddon; if you're curious and want to know more, you can read for free in here: http://www.bookofmorden.co.uk/stories/tkc.html
The book is released on April 1st, so mark your calendar and buy it right away at your favorite bookstore or you can click the link in the title and it will lead you to amazon!
Lynossa
2 comments:
Great review! Very detailed! I love it! Good job! :-)
@Ruperto, thanks ^^
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