Jim's can't wait to read selection is:
Simon Vector by JAK Holding
Publisher: JAK Books
Date: March 27, 2012
pages: 272
Alpha Draconis. Its name alone makes even the most law-abiding citizens of the Empire uneasy. The most remote prison facility in the Imperial corrections system, tunneled deep into the rock of a barren, vacuum-sealed planetoid, Alpha Draconis is home to hundreds of the known worlds most violent and disturbed criminals. From the serial murderer and rapist Buck Hangman Combs, to disgraced military leader General Rex Mason, every last one of these monsters plots escape. To be confined on Alpha Draconis is both a life sentence and a death sentence, for no prisoner entombed within its walls ever leaves the facility alive.
No less a prisoner is Doctor Lucius Feen, whose dead-end career has earned him an assignment to Alpha Draconis as chief medical officer. Under the eyes of the sadistic xenomorph guards, taunted by prisoners and staff alike, Feen flees to the darkest recesses of the prison. It is there, on a sublevel long ago abandoned, that Feen makes a terrifying discovery.
Strapped into a gravity chair and locked away in a hidden laboratory is the body of a fearsome cyborg. The dead man is not just any corpse, however. He is Captain Simon Vector, whose crew sacrificed themselves years before while repelling an abrupt and horrific alien invasion. The mysterious aliens, dubbed the Harvesters, have left their mark on Captain Vector, twisting and remaking parts of his body with cruelly inhuman efficiency. A scientist, Doctor Thadeus Kong, hid Vector's recovered body while trying to reverse-engineer the Harvesters prostheses. No one knows why Kong did it... for the process has driven Dr. Kong to madness and suicide.
As rumors of renewed Harvester incursions begin to seep in from the galactic rim, an investigator from Zodiac Battlesystems, Ana Bolo, is assigned to Alpha Draconis. Her mission is to find the very thing Lucius Feen hopes to hide: the body of Captain Vector, whose alien implants may hold the key to the corporation's continued dominance of Imperial weapons technology.
What no one on Alpha Draconis understands, however, is that Simon Vector is neither alive nor dead. He is something else, and the Harvester aliens may be drawn to their prodigal creation should he eventually wake. As Ana Bolo sifts through the classified research notes of the doomed Thaddeus Kong, she finds herself asking the question that Kong asked again and again. It is the question Lucius Feen must also ask, the question whose answer will mean life or death for the human race as the Harvester menace looms:
What is Simon Vector?
A little bit of background, JAK Holding is the pen-name used by John Jackson and Ken Chapman (John And Ken). John is also known as the cover artist, Johnny Atomic. (Z Is for Zombie and V Is for Vampire). Ken a co-creator of Choose Your Doom: Zombie Apocalypse, written by DeAnna Knippling. Simon Vector looks to hit a lot of my sweet spots - a comic book vibe with a scifi setting. I'm looking forward to giving this one a try.
Fated (An Alex Verus Novel)
by Benedict JackaPublisher: Penguin Group
Publication date: 2/28/2012
Pages: 304
Alex Verus is part of a world hidden in plain sight, running a magic shop in London. And while Alex's own powers aren't as showy as some mages, he does have the advantage of foreseeing the possible future--allowing him to pull off operations that have a million-to-one-chance of success.
But when Alex is approached by multiple factions to crack open a relic from a long-ago mage war, he knows that whatever's inside must be beyond powerful. And thanks to his abilities, Alex can predict that by taking the job, his odds of survival are about to go from slim to none...
This sounds like a fun diversion-- and the recommendation by Jim Butcher on the cover doesn't hurt. :)
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