I received an advance copy for free
and am leaving this review voluntarily.
Guardian Program is the first book in a promised series
of post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller novels chronicling events set some thirty
years in the future. The story moves with blinding speed and is packed full of
adventure set mostly around the San Francisco Bay Area. I enjoyed the story mostly
but found myself taken out of the story a bit by a small, but irritating plot
hole I will not reveal in this discussion. For the most part, the characters
are good, but could have used more development; they felt somewhat one
dimensional.
Despite my few reservations, Guardian
Program is a grim look at what seems an all too plausible future. I found
it disturbing (as it seems the author intends), because there is a great deal
of death and destruction as well as a few graphic scenes of death.
The story opens at Anderson Air
Force Base on the island of Guam. I.T. specialist Terre Hoffman is awakened in
the wee hours of the morning by an alarm meant to alert base personnel of an
imminent attack. The problem is, there have been many false alarms sounding for
a while and there is no reason to think this incident is any different. Terre's
wife and child are also awoken. He gets dressed, kisses his wife and child
before heading to the command center to find what is thought to be a bug in the
code.
Terre and his associate,
Kristopher Klein, head for the command center, determined once and for all, to
find and correct the bug causing all the false alarms, only this time, it isn't
false. Battle drones bombard the base, imparting utter destruction, including
the residences where civilian personnel live.
Terre and Kristopher work to
find what is happening until the command center is hit. Both he and his
associate are severely injured in the attack. In the aftermath, Terre learns
his family are also victims. He and Kevin are taken to Treasure Island in the
San Francisco Bay for treatment and recovery.
They soon learn that the
Guardian Program, originally designed to protect human life, has somehow turned
against its programming, and has declared all-out war against humanity. Terre
and Kristopher are thrust into a situation where they have to solve the problem,
but first, they have to survive. It is no simple task when technology has
turned against its makers.
Senior IT Specialist Terre
Hoffman is a good man and a dedicated worker. He knows how things work, but is
more of a supervisor than a technician, and he relies on others, like
Kristopher, to help him keep the tech in order. His character that one can care
about, but I would have liked to know a little more about him and his
background. He is haunted by the death of his wife and daughter through the story,
but he seems to have an ability to set his grief aside in favor of trying to
get the job done. This aspect of the character was a little uncomfortable for
me because it appeared so easy for Terre to do, especially since he appeared to
be a deeply compassionate man who would sacrifice himself for others.
NASA employee Kristopher Klein
is a character right out of the Geek Squad. He understands tech inside and out,
but the bug in the code has eluded him, which causes him a lot of irritation.
He also is the person responsible for a lot of the programming that went into
the Guardian Program. The reader gets very little development on Kristopher,
and I didn't find him to be a character I could care about on a personal level.
I felt the best developed
character in the story was the artificial intelligence technology and its many
uses as the author projected it into the future. For me, it was obvious the
author did his homework and gave a great deal of thought on what the effects AI
might have on the future of humanity, even if that future is full of strife
when the machines take over.
My favorite point of plot in Guardian
Program is the descriptions of the places the characters find themselves. I
was born in San Francisco and the setting felt like home to me. The author did
a great job placing the reader in the surroundings and captured the feel of the
Bay Area, where most of the story takes place.
What I take away from this
story is that one should never take a false alarm for granted. Things happen
for a reason, and one must be ever vigilant when something seem innocent can be
a very real warning of future disaster. Terre, Kristopher, and many others
worked hard to figure out what was wrong with the AI programming but didn't see
the impending doom until it was too late.
Guardian Program is a good, solid story that moves at a
pace worthy of the films we see today. There is never a dull moment in this
tale. While the characters are a bit shallow, the story is fleshed out well. It
is well written, well thought out, and is an exhilarating thrill ride. I
recommend it for those who enjoy post-apocalyptic thrillers with a heavy dose
of death and destruction. There are many scenes that some may find disturbing
as the story unfolds.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Herman grew up with a love of
story and writing. Since the age of six, Herman wanted to be a writer and
earned a Bachelor of Arts (English Major) from the University of Calgary in
2004.
Herman lives in the beautiful
Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada, where he enjoys cycling, hiking,
kayaking, and wine tasting.
Herman Steuernagel's debut
novel, Lies the Guardians Tell, the first in the page-turning YA Sci-Fi
Series, Lies of the Guardians.
Well, there it is...
Qapla!
Sounds like a great book.
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