Threshold Shift (30 page)
“It's ruined.”
Skylar reached out and took the empty cup away. Sam turned to face
her cousin.
“You shouldn’t have tried to bully me.”
Skylar shrugged, and then turned back to the burning city. “I
think it’s rather beautiful.”
Sam frowned, how could her cousin be so comfortable with such
destruction?
“We'll never see anything like that again,” Skylar said.
“At least, I hope not.”
Sam struggled to understand. “Why did they do it?” she
asked softly. “Why destroy everything? Why hurt and kill so
many people? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“No-one likes to be ruled,” Skylar replied. “So
they tear down everything that confines them.”
“But they’ll be punished,” Sam said.
“Maybe,” Skylar answered. “But when enough people
get together that doesn’t matter anymore. All that pent up
anger comes out.”
Sam shook her head. “Are we really like that?”
Skylar squeezed her shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow some of those
people will have a chance to think about what they’ve done,
maybe even regret it, but not tonight. They’re enjoying it too
much.”
Sam gritted her teeth only to hear her mother’s familiar laugh.
She turned to see her father stroking her mother’s cheek only a
few metres away. Both of them were smiling, their conversation lost
beneath the rhythmic hum of the engine and the roar of the waves. Sam
let it stay that way.
Skylar followed her gaze. “You survived, Sam, and so did they.
That’s enough isn’t it?”
Sam rubbed her eyes with dirty fingers and looked back towards the
city.
It burned!
*
To continue reading, please purchase
‘Hunter No More’
by G.D. Tinnams
Available from Amazon
Reviews
Of Hunter No More:
http://www.iheartreading.net/book-tour/book-review-and-giveaway-hunter-no-more-by-g-d-tinnams/
Hunter No
More is a fascinating piece of science-fiction, a novel combining
several concepts and crafting them into an engaging story that,
although scifi, does sound realistic. The story alternates between
the POV of several different characters, giving an all-around
experience of what’s happening and the consequences for
everyone. In that sense, the book reminded me of Game of Thrones.
Different characters tell different parts of the story and in the end
you get a well-rounded tale.
The main
focus of the story is the battle between humans and artificial
intelligence. The story is believable and the characters are
engaging. The action is flawless. It starts on the first page and is
still going strong by the end. At the same time, the author manages
to provide food for thought for the reader, about machine
intelligence and what would happen if one day they decide to rule the
world. The book features a lot of intrigue and mystery, and so many
twists and turns you simply can’t stop reading until you’ve
reached the end.
I’d
recommend this one to all science-fiction fans and thriller fans.
http://deborahjayauthor.com/2014/09/17/blog-tour-hunter-no-more-by-g-d-tinnams-review-giveaway-ya-sf/
Starting
out with a breathless action scene, Tinnams drags the reader by the
throat into a world where things are not as straightforward as they
initially appear. The panic of the night flight amid rioting is truly
heart pounding, and the relief once all are safely on board the
escape boat is a welcome breather, even though something is clearly
amiss between the two male leads, Roger and Keith.
This is an
accomplished piece of writing, and the concepts explored are
fascinating and well realised: AIs that wear ‘biotech’
(synthetic human bodies that house their consciousness when they need
a physical form other than their space ship), a war between machine
minds with human beings as unwitting casualties, and how a random
event can put a spanner (or a hammer – read it, you’ll
understand) in the works – or perhaps be fortuitous, depending
on whose point of view you take.
My small quibble with the
book was the – to me – slightly uneven structure. There
are 5 viewpoint characters, opening with what seems to be a typical
teenager, Samantha, which lured me into thinking this would be a
standard YA novel revolving around the teen character. Chapter 2 is
from her father, Keith’s viewpoint, and then the story
alternates between the two for several chapters before the 3rd
person, Josella, is introduced. Fine so far, but then when the action
really ramps up (and it does, believe me – the sequences on the
Amberjack are mind-blowingly good), Sam is left behind on the planet,
and almost half the book takes place without her. This made it feel
almost like reading two separate books, and I expected to at least
have Sam’s viewpoint again at the very end, to ‘showcase’
the story, but that doesn’t happen, and I felt a tiny bit
cheated, not seeing her response to the tragedy in the final
showdown.
Having said that, I would still highly recommend
this book, for the concepts, the depth of characterisation and the
action – well worth the read.
I received this book to
review for a blog tour – my opinions were in no way influenced
by
this.
http://msnoseinabook.com/2014/08/21/blog-tour-book-review-hunter-no-more-by-gd-tinnams/
I had been itching
for a good Sci-Fi book to read so when I saw that
Hunter No More
was going on tour I jumped at the opportunity to read it.
Hunter
No More
is exactly what you want in a Sci Fi read complete with a
mechanical species threatening the human race, emotional distress,
fast paced action and a heart breaking and rather beautiful
conclusion. I was riveted from the beginning to end. At 140 pages it
is a fast, light and yet satisfying read.
While I enjoyed this
book and the story enough to give it four stars I really wish it was
longer but that’s just selfish of me because I liked the
story alot and felt like the action and drama could have gone on
awhile longer. I loved the story itself and was really interested in
the civil war going on with the humans and the hunters themselves
were fascinating to me and their way of thinking about and dealing
with humankind. I do like how Josella, at the start of the story
seems to be a minor, sort of sidekick type character but ends up
being a pretty central focus of the story. I think that was great. I
feel like all of the characters, except maybe Anna and Skylar each
were equally important (at least perspective wise) to the story. I
love books that are written from multiple perspectives, I always like
to see the differences in the story as it occurs character to
character. This book was no exception to that, I really enjoyed the
delivery. One thing I loved about this story is that it never stops
with the action and I love my Sci Fi reads to just be full of gut
punch action where you can feel the adrenaline pumping almost like
you are experiencing it for yourself.
Hunter No More
was like
that for me.
The ending to this
book was rather stunning…surprising to me and sad. In a good
way. I rather enjoyed reading this book and I think that Sci Fi fans
in need of a light read would enjoy it too! I really dig the cover as
well!!
http://imaneclecticreader.weebly.com/blog/book-review-hunter-no-more
Told from the POV of a
few different characters, Hunter No More is an engaging scifi story
about AI vs. humanity. The book is breathtaking, fast-paced, and
provides excellent writing. The author crafts an engaging scifi world
and characters the reader feels an immediate connection to. An
awesome read to finish this year of reading.
http://coffeehobby.blogspot.be/2014/12/hunter-no-more.html
Samantha
Marriott's family is lucky to escape a growing political
discontent in their hometown. Things would be great at their new
temporary home if it weren't for the fact that aliens have decided to
complete their missions of destruction and all the adults have huge
secrets. Samantha and all those around her quickly decide what it is
that is important to them and must fight for it...to the death.
A
very smoothly written science fiction. This smoothness made the story
entrancing and so believable (another that was read in
one-sitting...again, one-sitting as defined by a mother of a running
Toddler and a constantly jumping Preschooler). The only time that I
found myself pausing for believability was when humor was at just too
awkward a time (that happened a bit near the end of the story).
I
like all of my characters to be very well-developed and this story
had that...in a puzzling way. The action was laid out by several
different narrators. For this particular story, skipping around from
one mind to the other actually worked (and one might even say it was
appropriate for the subject matter covered). On some level, each
entity (person, machine or alien) is struggling to understand the
true meaning of humanity.
(I would recommend Roger Zelazny's "The
Last Defender of Camelot" for readers who wish to further think
about humanity and whether humanity can be learned via will
power...G.D. Tinnams can take this observation as a
big
compliment to his writing style.)
http://bookaholicramblings.weebly.com/blog/book-review-and-giveaway-hunter-no-more
This
is one of the best scifi books I've ever read. The worldbuilding is
phenomenal, the story is breathtaking, and the author does an amazing
job with character development. I liked Sam's personality - she was
an easy character to relate to. Overall, it's hard to say just how
good this book is, but take it from me, it's pretty great.
http://booksareforever.weebly.com/blog/book-review-hunter-no-more
In Hunter No More,
Samantha Marriot and her parents have to flee their home after a
violent revolution. They hope they can be safe on "The Rainbow
Islands", but unfortunately their perils have only just begun.
Once they arrive on the island, Sam discovers a secret her father has
been keeping, and that secret changes everything. Meanwhile, the
Machine Mind Hierarchy of Earth wants to get rid of the planet's
remaining human population, and humanity's only hope is a damaged
Hunter unit.
We meet a bunch of characters along the way:
Keith, Kristof, Jostella, and many more, but the most memorable
character is Sam. She's strong, independent, intelligent,
rational, and easy to relate to. Her struggles seem quite real, and
her reactions to things are realistic as well.
The book is
fast-paced and offers, besides an impressive cast of characters, an
intruing story and solid writing.
G.D.
Tinnams has worked as a barman, a call centre operator, an IT support
analyst, and a software tester. But during all this time he was also
an insatiable reader of science fiction and fantasy books like Susan
Cooper's The Dark Is Rising Sequence, Orson Scott Card's Ender's
Game, Robert Charles Wilson's Blind Lake and Greg Egan's Permutation
City. He is very fond of weird, mind-bending stories and decided
quite early on to try writing some. In 2006 and 2007, he was in the
top 50 shortlist for SFX magazine's Pulp Idol. 'Threshold Shift' is
his first novel and is an attempt to merge Science Fiction and
Western genres to create something unique, entertaining and
thoughtful. He had a lot of fun writing it and hopes his readers have
just as much fun reading it.
Connect
with G.D. Tinnams via
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/GDTinnams