I had to be a part of this book tour.
Can you imagine it? Federal Angels?
Looks like Mark Diehl is bringing something different to the table.
I had to read XVII and find out.
What’s even better. This is book one in a series!
SEVENTEEN
By
Mark Diehl
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MY REVIEW
Just imagine almost the entire world’s population of 17 billion is asleep, being used like battery powered brains.
There are no sustainable food crops and the big wigs control everything. All you have to do is give yourself, all of yourself, over to the oppressors and all of your needs will be provided.
With food shortages and power hungry officials running the show, you can bet there will be a rebellion. And a young waitress, Eadie, is prophesied to lead it. She’ll be going up against a huge corporation with lethal Federal Angels they use to keep people in line. She’s only nineteen and has no clue what’s coming for her. Especially after she has to kill in self-defense and now she’s a wanted fugitive.
This was a wild read. I can’t even think about how to tell you about it. I’m going to try though.
The story is related to you from multiple points of view. I never felt one character was more central than another, which was good as many died.
The dystopian world the author built is in the future, and it could almost be real. Don’t we all fear big brother and their spies? Imagine giving over your brain, your thoughts, to your employer. Who knows what the implants are putting into your head, and what they are taking out of it.
But if you choose to live in the Zone as an ordinary citizen, you can barely get by. Caught between a rock and a hard place for sure.
Once I became familiar with the characters the pace picked up and I became immersed in the story. It’s not pretty. In fact, it’s brutal and hard to swallow at times. I still can’t get my head around a corporation as God and worshipping them as such. That’s just insane.
I’m not sure these really apply, but the movies Soylent Green and The Matrix came to mind as I read this book.
There are a few things I’d love to mention but I don’t do spoilers. What I can tell you is lots of people die in the frenzied ending. No happily ever after here, but an excellent finale, until the next book.
4 STARS
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BLURB
Most of the world’s seventeen billion people are unconscious, perpetually serving their employers as part of massive brain trusts. The ecosystem has collapsed, and corporations control all of the world’s resources and governments. A bedraggled alcoholic known as the Prophet predicts nineteen year-old waitress Eadie will lead a revolution, but how can she prevail when hunted by a giant corporation and the Federal Angels it directs?
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EXCERPT
The mist was clearing. Brian found himself standing in the street outside the bar he had entered earlier. Half a dozen battered and bleeding men stood surrounding him, and at least as many more lay on the gravel, seriously wounded or out cold.
The attack had come from somewhere in the mist, from all directions at once. His head and torso ached and throbbed. He locked his shaking knees to keep them from buckling. Every muscle in his body seemed to be lengthening, pouring downward like water. His eyelids drooped.
One of the standing men took a step toward him, fists raised. Brian tried to turn away from him, his arm flopping behind his back like a fish.
Behind his back! His eyes opened a little wider. He straightened and forced his arm to function, whipping out his revolver and aiming it around at the circle of attackers.
He tried to pull back the hammer but too many of his knuckles were broken. He ended up simply pointing it at the closest one, who backed away cautiously. Once past him, Brian walked backwards, still aiming the gun as long as he could see them. Then he turned, moving as fast as he could manage, back toward Dok’s place.
*****
Mark D. Diehl
Mark D. Diehl writes novels about power dynamics and the way people and organizations influence each other. He believes that obedience and conformity are becoming humanity’s most important survival skills, and that we are thus evolving into a corporate species.
Diehl has: been homeless in Japan, practiced law with a major multinational firm in Chicago, studied in Singapore, fled South Korea as a fugitive, and been stranded in Hong Kong.
After spending most of his youth running around with hoods and thugs, he eventually earned his doctorate in law at the University of Iowa and did graduate work in creative writing at the University of Chicago. He currently lives and writes in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
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