Friday, June 1, 2012

The Soul Consortium-Simon West-Bulford

The Soul Consortium


Simon West-Bulford

Medallion Press, Jul 1 2012, $14.95

ISBN: 9781605423937



Death has been conquered by medical science; when the host body expires, the memories are placed inside a clone. However, an undesired second order effect occurs as ennui leads to indifference which leads to species extinction instead of eternal artificial reincarnation.



Eighty-four quadrillion years since he was a child, Salem Ben is the last existing human because he fears the unknown of death. He lives in the Soul Consortium warehouse where every soul that ever existed is filed. Qod the AI who manages the Soul Consortium operation is his only companion. Qod informs him there are odd aberrations appearing in some of the digital soul records that should not be there. Using WOOM technology that enables him to explore the memories of those dead souls stored in the archives, Salem Ben enters the lives of these oddities that should not have happened. There he encounters Keitus Vieta who is turning the dead souls’ existence into eternal nightmares. Salem Ben must find a way to end the abomination’s spreading infection before the Soul Consortium becomes a chamber of horrors.



With a nod to the Zager and Evans’ song 2525, this is an entreating science fiction starring the last human whose travels into someone else’s history make for a strong tale thriller. The hero witnesses first-hand the horror, but is unsure how to stop the evil from distorting the memories of the souls. Readers will relish journeying with Salem Ben as he becomes a twentieth century serial killer, a sixteenth century Lombard spiritualist, a Castor World monk and the Soul Consortium Creator. However, what grips the reader is the mystery of the malevolent being who is changing humanity’s future by creating a hellish afterlife instead of the cyclical rebirth.



Harriet Klausner

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