The back cover blurb for this book got me interested immediately, and I just had to read it. The basic story idea was familiar to me.
Fifty people go to sleep in their own beds, and wake up in a compound with no idea how they got there.
Fifty people go to sleep in their own beds, and wake up in a compound with no idea how they got there.
Each person has their own assigned living space where they wake up, and it has a DNA lock.
Each person is from a different background (mathematician, surgeon, military paratrooper, etc).
They have food (if you can call it that) for decades, and seemingly anything they could need (there is an operating room - accessible only by the surgeon, and a room filled with weaponry, which can only be accessed by the military paratrooper).
They are isolated from the world due to a barrier that they cannot pass.
Why are they here?
The premise is very similar to the American TV show Persons Unknown, which aired in 2010 (only one season). I enjoyed that show until it started to get near the end, and then the finale was quite strange. Of course, the finale is not the only measure of a TV show. The British TV show The Prisoner (aired in 1967), starring Patrick McGoohan, was excellent, with an equally strange and confusing finale which had current fans and future fans of the show speculating about its meaning.
Before continuing, I'd like to have a brief interlude about The Prisoner. This show also had a similar premise at the beginning, although seemingly isolated to the central character. A secret agent angrily resigns, and while packing in his house is rendered unconscious by knockout gas (this is all conveyed in the opening credits). When he awakes, he finds himself in a place called The Village. He no longer has a name, and is simply referred to as Number 6 (everyone in the village has a number). Most of the events that take place in The Village are attempts to ascertain why Number 6 resigned. Number 6 reveals no information, since he does not know who he can trust. Has he been incarcerated by his own people, or by what is vaguely referred to as "the other side"? This show is the first story of this kind that I recall seeing. If you have an opportunity to see it, I highly recommend it (not the AMC miniseries, which changed many elements of the story, and is quite slow and difficult to follow).
Now, let's move on.
The story is told from the point of view of Alex, the military paratrooper. It starts off with a mission he is on, and after he goes to bed for the evening wakes up in a compound with many other people. Not one of them knows why they are there, but they do know they cannot leave because of the barrier - but is the barrier there to keep them in, or keep something else out?
I found this to be a very interesting story. I didn't want to put it down, and I was always anxious to know what was going to happen next. I also wanted to know what the "horror" outside the barrier would end up being.
In general, this story has shades of Michael Crichton's novel, Sphere. You get the impression that Alex and the others were hand-picked to be deposited as a group in this compound (there are various experts to fulfill various essential needs). Between the two stories, the major difference in is in the reason why the people are in the compound. In Sphere, it is a team of experts pulled together to investigate something. In Seed, these people are brought together for a much different reason: survival. The mystery unfolds quite nicely as the characters learn more and more about their environment.
Unlike some other stories I've read that deal with survival situations, this one specifically deals with the characteristics of small group which is thrust into an extremely stressful situation, and how cliques form in the group, resulting in what you could call various power struggles and political schemes. This is a necessary element as the characters try to surmise what is going on. In that sense, there are also shades of Lord of the Flies here - while this isn't a group of children, there is still an examination of what happens to a group when they are removed from the rest of civilization.
There are a few good surprises in Seed, and the "horror" outside of the barrier was fairly original and unexpected - at least, it wasn't anything I expected.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an interesting, riviting, and suspenseful story. I already have my eyes on Ice Fall, which is the first story written by this author.
I found this to be a very interesting story. I didn't want to put it down, and I was always anxious to know what was going to happen next. I also wanted to know what the "horror" outside the barrier would end up being.
In general, this story has shades of Michael Crichton's novel, Sphere. You get the impression that Alex and the others were hand-picked to be deposited as a group in this compound (there are various experts to fulfill various essential needs). Between the two stories, the major difference in is in the reason why the people are in the compound. In Sphere, it is a team of experts pulled together to investigate something. In Seed, these people are brought together for a much different reason: survival. The mystery unfolds quite nicely as the characters learn more and more about their environment.
Unlike some other stories I've read that deal with survival situations, this one specifically deals with the characteristics of small group which is thrust into an extremely stressful situation, and how cliques form in the group, resulting in what you could call various power struggles and political schemes. This is a necessary element as the characters try to surmise what is going on. In that sense, there are also shades of Lord of the Flies here - while this isn't a group of children, there is still an examination of what happens to a group when they are removed from the rest of civilization.
There are a few good surprises in Seed, and the "horror" outside of the barrier was fairly original and unexpected - at least, it wasn't anything I expected.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an interesting, riviting, and suspenseful story. I already have my eyes on Ice Fall, which is the first story written by this author.
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