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ADAM CHRISTOPHER is a novelist, comic writer, and award-winning editor, and is the author of Empire State, Seven Wonders, The Age Atomic, and Hang Wire. Born in New Zealand, he has lived in the United Kingdom since 2006.
ADAM CHRISTOPHER is a novelist and comic writer. In 2010, as an editor, Christopher won a Sir Julius Vogel award, New Zealand's highest science fiction honor. His debut novel, Empire State, was SciFiNow's Book of the Year and a Financial Times Book of the Year for 2012. In 2013, he was nominated for the Sir Julius Vogel award for Best New Talent, with Empire State shortlisted for Best Novel. His other novels include Seven Wonders and The Age Atomic. Born in New Zealand, he has lived in the United Kingdom since 2006.
The Machine Awakes
eBook
$7.99
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ISBN-13:
9781466851344
- Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
- Publication date: 04/21/2015
- Series: Spider War , #2
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 416
- File size: 1 MB
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Adam Christopher's The Machine Awakes is a far future space opera set in the universe of Burning Dark. In the decades since the human race first made contact with the Spiders--a machine race capable of tearing planets apart--the two groups have fought over interstellar territory. But the war has not been going well for humankind, and with the failure of the Fleet Admiral's secret plan in the Shadow system, the commander is overthrown by a group of hardliners determined to get the war back on track.
When the deposed Fleet Admiral is assassinated, Special Agent Von Kodiak suspects the new guard is eliminating the old. But when the Admiral's replacement is likewise murdered, all bets are off as Kodiak discovers the prime suspect is one of the Fleet's own, a psi-marine and decorated hero--a hero killed in action, months ago, at the same time his twin sister vanished from the Fleet Academy, where she was training to join her brother on the front.
As Kodiak investigates, he uncovers a conspiracy that stretches from the slums of Salt City to the floating gas mines of Jupiter. There, deep in the roiling clouds of the planet, the Jovian Mining Corporation is hiding something, a secret that will tear the Fleet apart and that the Morning Star, a group of militarized pilgrims searching for their lost god, is determined to uncover.
But there is something else hiding in Jovian system. Something insidious and intelligent, machine-like and hungry.
The Spiders are near.
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Publishers Weekly
02/23/2015Christopher’s uneven second Spider Wars novel (after The Burning Dark) grinds gears as it shifts from space horror to espionage and adventure. As the war continues against the Spiders, “organo-mechanical” creatures vulnerable to psychic attacks, spy Von Kodiak is recalled from his deep-cover mission after the space fleet’s admiral is assassinated. The investigation leads Kodiak to an AWOL Psi-Marine trainee named Caitlin whose brother recently died in battle, and then to a conspiracy involving religious fanatics and the entire military-industrial complex. While Christopher’s characters are generally rich and interesting, his plot too often relies on contrivances and convenience, and his sense of narrative flow is often baffling: a major villain isn’t even mentioned, let alone introduced, until over halfway into the book, and the multiple chapters spent on the aborted mission Kodiak is rather ludicrously pulled from do nothing to develop his personality. There are still plenty of entertaining action sequences (an interrogation interrupted by yet another assassination is staged particularly well), and the rest isn’t bad so much as underwhelming. Agent: Stacia Decker, Donald Maass Literary. (Apr.)
Library Journal
02/15/2015Cait and Tyler Smith are twins with psionic abilities who both trained to be psi-Marines. After Tyler is supposedly killed in action, Cait drops out of the academy and joins a shadowy group that promises to bring Tyler home. She ends up in the middle of a conspiracy involving a coup in the Fleet and a new front in the war with the alien Spiders. VERDICT While the first book in the series, 2014's The Burning Dark, was a tight claustrophobic work of spooky horror, the larger canvas here loses that dark menacing mood. The Spiders are sure to be good long-term villains in the series, but this middle volume lacks punch and has some distracting flashbacks that pull readers out of the story without gaining much narratively. Christopher (Hangwire; Empire State) is a great new talent in sf, so one hopes the upcoming entries will regain some momentum.
Kirkus Reviews
2015-02-02Space opera set in the same universe as Christopher's space-horror yarn The Burning Dark (2014).Earth is losing its war with gigantic alien machines called Spiders. When the current Fleet Admiral's plan to use psychic-powered psi-marines to defeat the Spiders ends in disaster, he's overthrown by hard-liners. Then the deposed Admiral is assassinated, so Cmdr. Laurel Avalon of the Fleet Bureau of Investigation tasks agent Von Kodiak to find out why and by whom—particularly when the Admiral's usurper is immediately eliminated too. But Kodiak's prime suspect, psi-marine Sgt. Tyler Smith, was killed in action months ago, at the same time Smith's sister Cait vanished from the Fleet Academy. Cait, hoodwinked by crazy Samantha Flood's dissident religious sect Morning Star into agreeing to assassinate the (first) Admiral, knows Tyler isn't dead because she shares a telepathic bond with him. But before she can carry out her assignment, somebody else kills the Admiral. Confused, she flees, only to be captured by Morning Star agents and conveyed to Jupiter, where the Jovian Mining Corporation maintains vast facilities. Here, Flood intends to plug Cait into the JMC's AI so as to create, or awaken, her god. But the JMC's shadowy owner has even more unpleasant plans for Cait. And where is Tyler and the thousands of other supposedly dead psi-marines? The plot just about adds up if you aren't too fussy and ignore the irrelevant discursions and limited action. A far more serious blemish are the characters, so paper-thin they don't even qualify as stereotypes, what with an insanely overconfident, chortling supervillain, and a heroine whose accomplishments involve being duped, drugged, beaten up and plugged into a mind-blowing computer system. Fans of the previous certainly will want to investigate.