Sunday, October 9, 2011

Unalive by Cyrus Keith



In the second installment of The NADIA Project, the potential stakes are raised even higher. The lab where Nadia was built is no more. But when The Pinnacle strikes back at the government agencies trying to crack its secrets, a horrible truth emerges: The evil cabal of kingmakers is still building living weapons of mass destruction somewhere on the globe.

Jon Daniels and Nadia Velasquez must find the lab and stop it before a new wave of terror erupts across the world. In order to succeed, though, they must get through The Pinnacle's most deadly weapon: Jenna Paine.

All who stand between evil and the innocent are two ancient warriors, a misfit genius, a rogue FBI agent, and a living antimatter bomb named NADIA.

 
I’m a member of Mensa, so I’m used to hanging out with geniuses.  My favorite authors are people like Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Tom Clancy when he was still writing his own books.  I am truly honored to call Cyrus Keith a colleague.  His writing is as gripping, as complex, and reads as true as the masters of science fiction and Clancy’s early work.

Unalive is Book Two in the NADIA Project trilogy.  I loved Becoming NADIA and waited anxiously for Unalive and was not disappointed.  Nadia Velasquez is an artificial person with the memories and feelings of an FBI agent who died in a car accident. More than that—she’s an anti-matter bomb.

Unalive starts with the Secretary of State returning from a trip overseas during which she came down with the flu and was treated in a local hospital.  Still feeling a bit funky, she stops at the West Wing of the White House to give the Vice President her reports, and explodes.  The Pinnacle is back. 

Jon heads to Europe with an Air Force officer who has been investigating the NADIA project, knowing that antimatter is involved, but not realizing she has met “the device.”  Their small, rogue group feels that Nadia is too precious to risk on this mission.  After all, if she dies, she’ll explode and kill millions.  But Nadia disguises herself and goes anyway.  And what they find there left me anxious for Book Three!  C’mon Cyrus!  Write faster!

Mr. Keith’s characters are so well-drawn and complex, by the end of the book, I began to have sympathy for Nadia’s arch-rival, Jenna Paine.  He said in an interview recently that Jenna is a “damaged” person, and indeed she is.  It takes a master to write a sympathetic villain.

If you haven’t read Becoming NADIA, buy it now, along with Unalive.  If you have read it, then I probably don’t have to prompt you to buy Unalive, other than to tell you that it’s just as good!  Oh, Unalive can stand on its own, but why miss out on Becoming NADIA?  I gave that one five stars, too.

Price:  $5.95

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1 comment:

  1. I couldn't agree with you more. Cyrus Keith is a wonderfully talented author. He's definitely one to watch. :)

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