“People are dying, their corpses left savaged and drained of blood. The obvious culprit: vampires. But vampires shouldn’t be able to sneak around Wistful undetected or shadowstep freely inside her body. Soon the station herself becomes oddly uncooperative, leaving Rohan and Wei Li bewildered and all her inhabitants in danger.
Finding and defeating the killer will require a deep dive into the ancient history of Wistful and of the il’Drach people. Into the connections between the Ursans, the wormholes, and the races that preceded them. Into the dark past of a tormented space station that yearns only for death.
Rohan will be forced to fight, and maybe even to kill. He’ll have to face those who bear grudges from his past, the Empire he once served, and his own reluctance to again become the warrior he sometimes needs to be.”
Title: Blood Reunion
Series: Hybrid Helix #3
Author: J.C.M. Berne
Page Count: 408
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 5.0/5.0
Date Read: January 26th, 2023
I had began reading the Hybrid Helix in 2022 and once again as I’m working on getting caught up with my open series I dove into Blood Reunion by J.C.M. Berne. I’ve really enjoyed this series so far and even got another coworker sucked into this world as well. He actually got through book three before I had a chance to get to it! Anyways the third installment to this series did not disappoint. I do feel that as the series continues we learn more and more about Rohan as he is learning about himself along the way. Of course I was excited to see more of a role both from Wei Li and Ursula again as well since they are a couple of my favorite supporting characters! Again, we get a rather large inclusion from Rohan’s past in the third book as well. Continuing to help us understand the relationships from his past making him who he is. But at the same time each book has shown his growth and becoming someone different than who he was as well. Ok I know anyone else who has read these books probably looks at the above thinking these short, exciting, fast paced adventure reads can’t possible have this much depth to them. But I swear they actually do! Joe has done a great job in including all of these aspect along with different types of adventures and characters who are very relatable to at times. I’ll start with the pacing since I’ve around touched on this. Joe’s style of beginning his books with the current timeline before flashing back to spend the rest of the book bringing us back up to that moment took me some getting used to. However, I’m comfortable with it now and have grown to actually enjoy it simply as a big reveal by the end. As previously mentioned these are very fast paced with a lot of action. They are shorter reads without much struggle on the vocabulary for myself. The worldbuilding only continues to grow with each book. Not necessarily Joe’s skill at this but his continuation of showing us more and more of this world. This time around definitely had more of a focus on the timeline or history of things but that only helps us understand more of what is happening in the present. Finally, I think most can already guess my stance on the character development. WE continue to learn more and more about Rohan but also more about the other characters. Learning more about our living ships and stations continues to be entertaining. But more of our ancient civilizations and their relationships to current character was awesome in book three! We still have some unanswered questions, but I’m sure we will continue to fill in those blanks throughout the series and have new questions we seek answers for. As I’ve mentioned before the books in the Hybrid Helix series would be great for someone looking for a fast paced science fiction read. Book three includes what I’d consider a more typical fantasy type race or creature as well which brings a nice true science fiction fantasy crossover element this time around. I’ll be looking forward to the next read in the series! World Building 4.5/5 Pacing 5/5 Character Development 5/5 |
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