Book Review – BLOOD ZERO SKY by J Gabriel Gates
Today Booklover Book Reviews is hosting the TLC Book Tour for Blood Zero Sky by J Gabriel Gates.
Blood Zero Sky Synopsis
Unprofitables are banished to work camps to pay off their credit. Other tie-men and women look on apathetically. Fair is fair. Everyone knows you shouldn’t use more credit than you are worth to the Company. They turn their attention to the next repackaged but highly coveted N-Corp product on the market, creatively advertised on the imager screens that adorn virtually every available flat surface. All the while, their mandatory cross-implants and wrist-worn “ICs” keep them focused on the endless cycle of work and consumption to which they are enslaved.
May Fields — the CEO’s daughter — would like to believe she is above all that. Head of N-Corp’s marketing team, the young woman who has almost everything anyone could want spends her days dreaming up ingenious ways to make workers buy more of what they already have and don’t need. Even before May discovers that the Company is headed for its first loss in thirty years, she is feeling the stirrings of dissatisfaction with the system that has given her everything she’s ever wanted . . . except the freedom to be herself.
When she is kidnapped by a member of the Protectorate — a secret order dating back to the American Revolution — May is suddenly faced with the frightening truth of what the Company’s greed has done to our most basic human rights. Will she embrace who she is and join the battle to restore America’s democratic freedom, or put her blinders back on and return to her safe and passionless life?
More prediction than fiction, Blood Zero Sky is a riveting, non-stop and suspenseful gaze into the looking glass, destined to rise with the zeitgeist of our times to become the anthem of a generation. (Amazon)
BOOK REVIEW
Gone now is the gun from my hand. Gone, the laughter of my friends. Gone, my father’s protective glare. This is the path one walks alone.
Behind me, the N-Corp headquarters building thrusts from the earth like a giant spear, impaling the sky. It, this building, is the axis around which the whole world turns. From its doors flow all the wealth, all the abundance, and all the horror that mankind has wrought. That I have wrought.
In Blood Zero Sky J Gabriel Gates has penned one of the strongest opening passages of a novel I have read. I was hooked.
Gates has crafted a not too distant future that is terrifyingly plausible and a wonderful cast of original characters. Narrator and protagonist May Fields is the perfect heroine in that she is not perfect. She has made mistakes, she has regrets. The reader’s relationship and support for May develops organically as she goes on her revelatory journey and takes responsibility for her actions and their impacts on the lives of others. In this way Gates weaves within this sad tale seeds of hope and redemptive spirit.
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Blood Zero Sky by J Gabriel Gates surpasses your average dystopian novel – it is a deeply affecting story with a stirring and timely message.
Something that impressed me about this story is its recognition of ‘grey’ on the black and white spectrum of principles and ideals. While this is a story that highlights the dire consequences of corporate greed, it is by no means anti-capitalist. Rather it actually highlights the merits of capitalism, when monopolies and the relationships between business and government are kept in check. Often authors of dystopian fiction go too far left in the quest for distinction to maintain a compelling alternative, in my opinion.
Gates’ authorial talents are what took this novel from a well constructed storyline to a work that is immensely moving. So moving in fact I will admit to shedding a tear nearing the conclusion. His prose displays a deep understanding of characters motivations,
I was sure that a great love story awaited me, that I would be a worthy and beautiful heroine, that once I found my true love and determined which battles I was destined to fight, my life would at last take on the radiance that lived only in my mind.
and a compelling curiousity about life and acknowledgement of both its power and fragility.
Above, great glass buildings surround me, reflecting disjointed pieces of the beautiful, purpling sky. I wonder what the sunrise would look like without man’s achievements cutting it to shreds.
If this novel has a weakness, and I’ve had to look hard for it, it is that although the twists were brilliant, I had figured them out before the protagonist. Was this the author’s intention? I am not sure.
Blood Zero Sky by J Gabriel Gates is an outstanding novel – dystopian fiction with gravitas. It is an entertaining tale of action and suspense, a story of self-discovery, of love and loss, a dire warning to mankind and a stirring call to ‘think’.
BOOK RATING: The Story 4.5 / 5 ; The Writing 5 / 5
Have you read Blood Zero Sky? Do you want to?
Join the discussion below.
Thanks to TLC Book Tours and HCI I have a paperback copy of this excellent novel to giveaway – – ENTER NOW – – (US/Canadian mailing addresses only)
Be sure to check out the other tour stops on this TLC Book Tour.
BOOK DETAILS: Blood Zero Sky (Amazon); Blood Zero Sky (Kobobooks); Blood Zero Sky (TheNile – Aus)
Genre: Sci-Fi-Fantasy, Action-Adventure, Thriller, Romance
Author Information: J. Gabriel Gates grew up in Michigan, the son of a teacher and an industrial supplies salesman. After receiving his B.A. in theatre from Florida State University, he moved to Los Angeles, where he acted in short films and a dozen national TV commercials. He wrote several screenplays while working various day jobs: as a host at a sushi restaurant, a car salesman, a construction worker, and the manager of a luxury apartment building. Then, he began writing books.
His first two novels, Dark Territory: The Tracks, Book 1 and The Sleepwalkers, were published by HCI Books in 2011; Ghost Crown: The Tracks, Book 2 was published in 2012. He is currently at work on a new teen horror novel.
– Check out J Gabriel Gates’ official website
– Read an interview with J Gabriel Gates at CSReview
Other reviews of Blood Zero Sky: Publishers Weekly; Samantha Boyette; My Tower of Books; Reader Alex
* My receiving a copy of this book free of charge for review purposes did not impact my ability to express my honest opinions on this title.
