Fiction: FICTION / Science Fiction /
General
Product format: Hardback
Price: £20.00; $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-78758-355-9
Series: Fiction Without Frontiers
Imprint: FLAME TREE PRESS
Distribution: Marston Book Services
Publication date: Aug 2020
A multi-national research team, led by a medical genomics expert suffering
from MS, study an ancient pandoravirus at a remote Siberian research facility.
Called “Molli” by the research team, the organic substance reveals some
unique but troublesome characteristics, qualities that, in the wrong hands,
could lead to human extinction. The researchers soon learn that even in the right hands, Molli is a force too dangerous to escape their compound. But the virus has a mind of its own, and it wants out.
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing.
Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
The Rosie Synopsis
It’s a couple of decades in the future; at a remote research station in Siberia a team practising for a Mars mission find a 30,000 year old frozen squirrel’s nest. In it there are four unique giant viruses. Some time later, MS-stricken virologist, Clara St Claire is working on one, which she calls Molli. Something strange is going on with these ‘viruses’.
An agent of mysterious ‘Pointy Hats’ in the Vatican, known as Dante, has come to the research centre to destroy the viruses before they destroy humanity. Unfortunately he is too late.
What follows is a rush to escape from the blob monster gobbling up humans. The research centre is in lockdown, there are few ways out and not everyone has the common good in mind.
The Good
This book is very cinematic, it rushes along after a slow build-up, placing characters and events in context. The writing is gripping and the description of Molli is terrifying at times. There is tension and release points, grief and joy. It’s really very movie-like. I think it would make a good sci-fi horror film.
The science doesn’t really make sense but it’s hand-wavy enough that it works in the context. Hand-wavy science is what you expect; it holds the story together.
The ending was a total shock. I was not expecting that ending.
The Not-So-Good
The characters are fairly stock sci-fi horror film characters – a scientist with a mission, another scientist who’s a bit of a dick, a cowardly love interest, a few heavies.
Dr St. Claire is particularly irritating. She has MS and the internal monologue tells us she hates her disability, hates her body and then when the virus ‘cures’ her she is ecstatic. Now, I don’t have MS, it’s honestly a cruel degenerative condition, but I think Parent plays to much into the trope of disabled people hating their disability and being desperate for a cure.
The Verdict
A solid, cinematic sci-fi horror that rollicks along at breakneck pace.
In his head, Jason Parent lives in many places, but in the real world, he calls New England his home. The region offers an abundance of settings for his writing and many wonderful places in which to write them. He currently
resides in Rhode Island.
In a prior life, Jason spent most of his time in front of a judge… as a civil
litigator. When he wanted a change, he traded in his cheap suits for flip flops and designer stubble. The flops got repossessed the next day, and he’s
back in the legal field…sorta. But that’s another story.
When he’s not working, Jason likes to kayak, catch a movie, and travel any
place that will let him enter. And read and write, of course – he does that too
sometimes.
Please visit the author on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJasonParent, on Twitter at
https://twitter.com/AuthorJasParent, or at his website, for information
regarding upcoming events or releases, or if you have any questions or
comments for him.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 
Thanks for the blog tour support Rosie x