~ About the Book ~
Before it is destroyed, Elliott notices something is amiss with the book, or rather Project Alexandria. The two do not match, including an extra sonnet titled “Day Moon”. When Elliott investigates, he uncovers far more than he bargained for. There are sinister forces backing Project Alexandria who have no intention of using it for its public purpose.
Elliott soon finds himself on the run from federal authorities and facing betrayals and deceit from those closest to him. Following clues left by his grandfather, with agents close at hand, Elliott desperately hopes to find a way to stop Project Alexandria. All of history past and yet to be depend on it.
Series: #1 Tomorrow’s Edge
Genre: Speculative
Release date: 26 March 2017
Pages: 389
Publisher: Independent
Amazon US // Amazon AU // iBooks // Goodreads
~ Excerpt ~
Lara frowned and glanced around them once more. “This isn’t a game Elliott. There’s something wrong with this book.” As she said this she pulled out the book Elliott’s grandfather had given him and handed it to him, her hands releasing it quickly into his as though it were poisonous.
“I didn’t let the Romeo and Juliet thing slide. I read the version in the online collections. And then, I did the same with just about every one of Shakespeare’s plays. None match, not even one.”
She took a breath, and her eyes darted around. Her voice dropped an octave as she said, “So, I checked the sonnets. I found twenty in the online system not in the book and I never found a single one titled ‘Day Moon.’ So, tell me Elliott, what is going on?”
Elliott stood, his lips pursed and his jaw clenched. In his chest his heart was pounding, but all he could feel was the pressing weight of accusation. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, ok,” Lara said, her cinnamon eyes full of anger. “Do you know what that means then?”
There was no time to begin to understand what was going on. It made no sense hat the book didn’t match Project Alexandria’s volumes. Even if initial entry had produced errors, works like Shakespeare’s would’ve been cross-referenced and compared over thousands of entries to restore the actual text. It didn’t sound like a few words were misspelled. So, what did that mean?
Huffing out a frustrated sigh, Lara turned and started to walk off. She stopped and motioned emphatically for him to follow. They walked to the back of the store and again she looked for any kind of surveillance devices. Satisfied there were none, she stated, “This isn’t good.”
“What are you talking about? I mean it stinks that the system is off, but it’s a good thing you caught this. They’ll probably give you a promotion for it,” Elliott said, eyeing Lara with concern. A few minutes earlier he had been thrilled to be spending time with her and now all he wanted to do was get out of the store.
“I’m talking about how the system might be wrong. Bad wrong,” she said through her teeth. Another visual sweep of the area around them. “Look, I read some of the changes, and some of them were eerily familiar. I ran a search on the words. A few of them matched a recent speech by the president on arms control. Why would the Merchant of Venice care about that?
“That made me anxious, so I began reading some periodicals. I remembered a house fire a few months ago and I read the whole article, because you entered it into the system. A man burned to death in his home after accidentally over-using his cooktop. When I read it this time, the story was different. A terrorist attacked the man’s home, burning him alive. The rest of the article was about vigilance in the face of terrorism. Do you get it now, Elliott?”
Several seconds passed by as Elliott thought about what he had just heard, and considered a response. He felt as though someone had been dunking his head under water and only now was he able to gather breaths of fresh air. A dazed feeling pervaded him and his thoughts felt muddled. At length he answered, “I think so.”
~ Review ~
It was the premise that drew me to this novel—the idea of a world where all books have been converted to digital forms, and physical books have been destroyed in the name of ensuring everyone has equal access. It’s an idea that sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see the possibilities for abuse of this kind of system. I love my Kindle, but that kind of literary socialism? Yikes!
The future world Brett Armstrong has set this story in is very similar to our own, just a little more technologically advanced, which makes it all the more realistic. There is a deceptive ‘everydayness’ about the opening chapters, which follow Elliott and his best friend Lara as they go about their work and studies, but when Elliott shows Lara the book of Shakespeare’s complete works bequeathed to him by his grandfather, the ‘everydayness’ is gone.
It’s the beginning of a life in hiding as they seek not only to protect the precious volume, but also to unravel the clues Elliott’s grandfather has left for them to follow and discover exactly what Project Alexandria is all about. Along for the journey is Elliott’s cousin John, on the run from false allegations of murder, and crossing their paths more than once are some of Elliott’s colleagues—people he can no longer trust. Maybe.
The plot kept me engaged as Elliott struggled to avoid capture, to know whom to trust (even wondering about John and Lara at times), and to decipher what to do next, but I felt the novel would have benefited from a thorough line edit. The punctuation, in particular, was inconsistent, and I thought the writing was more wordy than necessary. That’s not to say it was pretentious or purple in its prose, simply that I thought the writing could have been tighter; it tended to use more words than were necessary, or to give more information than was necessary. Too, while the author generally made good use of his wide vocabulary, there were odd instances of misused words, like ‘implicit’ rather than ‘explicit’ or ‘predisposed’ rather than ‘indisposed’. And I didn’t need quite so many references to Lara’s ‘cocoa’ or ‘cinnamon’ eyes.
This is the first in a series, so don’t expect a final resolution here, but there’s no cliff-hanger ending either. There’s also a little romance, though it doesn’t take a prominent place in the story. All-in-all it was a read that kept me engaged and shows great potential as this author continues to hone his craft.
I received a copy of this novel from the author. This has not influenced the content of my review which is my honest and unbiased opinion.
~ About the Author ~
From an early age, Brett Armstrong had a love for literature and history. At age nine, he combined the two for his first time in a short story set in the last days of the Aztec Empire. After that, writing’s role in his life waxed and waned periodically, always a dream on the horizon, till he reached college.
At West Virginia University, he entered the Computer Engineering program and spent two years pursuing that degree before an opportunity to take a creative writing class, for fun, came along. It was so enjoyable, he took another and in that course he discovered two things. The first was the plot for a short story called Destitutio Quod Remissio, which the others students really seemed to love. The second, he realized he absolutely loved writing. For him, it was like the proverbial light bulb coming on.
In the years since, describing that epiphany has been difficult for him, but he found the words of 1924 Olympian Eric Liddell are the most eloquent expression for it: “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” God gave Brett a passion for writing, and so feels His pleasure when writing.
After a few years passed, Brett got his Computer Engineering degree, but also completed a minor in each of his real passions: history and creative writing. In 2013, he began graduate school to earn an MA in Creative Writing. During that time he completed the novelization of Destitutio Quod Remissio and entered the 2013-2014 CrossBooks Writing Contest, which won the contest’s grand prize. As of March 2015, Brett completed his MA and is presently employed in the West Virginia Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology as a programmer analyst.
Brett lives in Saint Albans, West Virginia, with his beautiful wife, Shelly. In the summer the pair gardens together, and each day Brett continues writing his next novel.
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