21 12 / 2014

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In the far future, a group of rich pleasure seekers with nothing exciting in life to live for but the thrill of a good hunting expedition, pay a special agent to lead them to that thrill. He takes them to a moon that he’s identified as a “biohacking” site, an illegal lab where monstrosities are created through incredibly advanced forms of genetic engineering. But little does the agent know that the creatures he’s releasing are from the hands and mind of a creative biohacking genius, the likes of which the universe has never seen. Now the agent, the hunters, the creator, and the visitors of a close-by luxury vacation resort, are all fair game to become the hunted themselves.

Prime is the debut novel of Andrew Reiner and Chris Kluwe.  Reiner is the executive editor of Game Informer magazine, a periodical dedicated to video games that he’s worked at since 1995. Chris Kluwe is a former Minnesota Vikings punter and known gaming enthusiast. This may seem like a strikingly odd combination of writers to come together to construct a serious science-fiction novel, but the two of them work together extremely well. Any fears you might have of a novel that’s filled with gaming tropes and clichés can be easily and quickly eased as the two authors use their knowledge of games to avoid falling into many of those traps, specifically when it comes to the characters and their development.

For the most part, the story focuses on two main characters, Xander, the aforementioned biohacking genius, and Rob, the agent hired to bring people to the facility. It would’ve been very easy for Xander to fall into the mad scientist, in love more with his creations than with people archetype, but some delicate and intricate touches were made to his character to stop him from embodying that concept. Similarly, Rob could easily have just been the stoic tough-guy, but he turns out to be one of the most engaging characters in the novel because of the fantastic noir narrative perspective he tells the story from.

The noir elements lend the story a bit of a Blade Runner feel to it, but largely the novel takes inspiration from Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. Prime’s concept of genetically created monsters ravaging a resort obviously borrows from Crichton, but Reiner and Kluwe know that the average reader will pick up on that and use it to their advantage. Because certain familiar elements are there, the reader can have a general idea of what to expect, while there’s still enough left unknown to keep things suspenseful. Or to put it another way, you already know that monsters are going to slaughter people within this resort but what these creatures are, what they’re capable of, and the carnage that follows are all up in the air until it unfolds before you.

The novel’s pacing is generally quite brisk, helped along by the jumping from perspective to perspective. Being able to see the story build from the viewpoints of different characters gives the novel a film like quality to it; actively keeping you engaged and invested in the people caught within this nightmare. This does lead to some unevenness in places given that Rob’s chapters tend to be stronger than the others. Thanks to Rob’s inner monologue, we get story background in a far less expository fashion than Xander’s chapters where the dialogue between him and his lab assistant are heavy and a touch forced with exposition.  In all fairness, Reiner and Kluwe are trying to establish a large, self-contained universe, so exposition is a necessity but the eloquence with which Rob delivers it makes his chapters a more thrilling read.

It helps too that Rob gets to see a lot of the action sequences up close and personal. This is where the writing of Reiner and Kluwe really comes through the strongest. Each fight and battle that the hunting expedition encounters is told in thrillingly detailed fashion. These two have found the perfect balance between being detailed and action oriented. Each unique weapon that’s brought into battle, each creature that tries to claim their lives, is made almost tangible to the reader, but not at the expense of stopping the action from moving forward. And it’s not mindless action either, the way the battles unfold reveal character elements of the expedition party in a way dialog could not.

Prime is very well constructed in a way that most novels of this genre with an action focus, are not. What’s presented here is hardly the kind of political or social story telling that you’d find from Isaac Assimov, Ray Bradbury, or Philip K. Dick, but it’s also not the novelization of a B-movie. Serious storytelling takes place within a universe that Reiner and Kluwe have mapped out to have its own history, rules, technological advancements, government, and social structure. Prime avoids overwhelming the reader with all this by containing the action to one, central location. This also gives it the benefit of not being a typical science-fiction genre piece consumed with space travel and alien encounters, thus opening it up to fans of general action stories. By the same token however, there are certain parts of the universe and the story that could’ve used a bit more explanation.  There’s no hole so gaping as to pull the reader out of the story, but some plot elements could’ve benefited from more detail

Andrew Reiner and Chris Kluwe draw on some wonderful muses to craft Prime while injecting enough of their own interests, style, and personality to make something uniquely compelling and entertaining. Despite its occasional heavy-handedness on exposition and one or two groan inducing stock phrases (“…But I aim to find out… I aim to find out indeed”) their debut effort is engrossingly entertaining and solidly constructed. The universe that these two built is full of potential for future stories, and with Genesis: Prime as an indicator of what is to come, science-fiction fans have cause to rejoice for a new series.

Review by: Heath Andrews

Rating: 4.5 Stars (out of 5)

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