The Lever LGBTQ Science Fiction, Gay Fiction
Quuer Space (A Rebel Satori Imprint
June 11, 2022
Kindle
342
Amazon
n the future, a reporter uncovers a plot to change the DNA of selected young adults, abduct them, and cover up evidence that they ever existed. Her investigation takes her and three gay soldiers to Mars and eventually to the other side of the galaxy, where any misstep they make could doom the human race.
Mark Salzwedel‘s science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in multiple publications, including one forthcoming anthology. He lives in New York City and writes stories and composes music when not working as an advertising copywriter.
Review by Ulysses Dietz
Member of The Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
I got really caught up in this eerie sci-fi adventure, set a couple of centuries in the future in a surprisingly normal USA…normal except for the striking level of technological interface that has become routine in people’s lives.
The unexpected heroine of the story is, in her own words, a fat, black lesbian; an investigative journalist named Shonda Kinney. Shonda gets wind of a series of odd deaths associated with genetic engineering—something that can cure all sorts of genetically-linked diseases. As she starts digging into the mystery, she finds herself pursued by mysterious men in black.
All of this sounds like what you might expect in a sci-fi thriller, except for the fact that alternating chapters are voiced from the perspective of a group of entities known as the C10, which are beings entirely composed of pure cybernetic energy (as near as I could understand). This group is very old, and continually explores the universe for new sources of energy and knowledge. We are told right from the start that the C10 is trying to decide what to do about the human race. Shonda Kinney finds herself in the middle of it.
The four main characters in the story are Shonda, a young computer executive named Roger Hammersmith; a young Indian-American woman named Clarissa Vaas, and a Chinese-American college student named Ron Gao. Together they experience and adventure that challenges their understanding of the universe, and pushes the boundaries of their individual self-perception.
For all that, it is not a terrifying book, nor a particularly violent once. It is intellectually curious, pulling the reader along as the characters become familiar and the puzzle of the C10’s purpose becomes ever more clear. I suppose this makes it a psychological thriller, but the author keeps the core humanity of the characters—especially the completely-unprepared-for-heroism Shonda Kinney—firmly at the forefront.
There is as much wonder here as there is fear, and that careful mixture made this book a special read for me.
