Book picks similar to
Biohack by J.D. Lasica


science-fiction
thriller
first-reads
reviewed

Final Notice


Van Fleisher - 2018
    Others would contact family, friends, lovers, ex-lovers. Some might take a trip or make an exceptional donation. Still others might clean the house and do the laundry. And some…might kill. The year is the very near future. A brilliant young doctor and mathematician, Vijay Patel, has invented a new health/sport watch that monitors blood chemistry so accurately, it can actually predict when someone will die – within 10, 20, or 30 days. The intention of this “Final Notice,” as it is called, is to allow people to get their affairs in order and reach out to loved ones before it’s too late. But when those notified have easy access to a gun, the result is sometimes lethal for more than just the watch-owner. These are the stories of several people who receive their Final Notice and their very different reactions...including a desire to get revenge with impunity. They range from an 89-year-old resident in a retirement home to a U.S. Senator...from a benevolent widow to a crass tycoon to a noted climate change scientist. But in this fresh, fast-paced, political thriller, page-turner, their stories are all set against the all-too-recognizable backdrop of a guns-gone-wild America, and the relentless push by the NRA and their surrogate politicians to make guns even easier to acquire. Their stories are also connected by the involvement of several likeable protagonists. These include: the inventor of the watch ... the FBI agent charged with stopping the killings...and a recently retired, middle-class couple, Vince and Trudi Fuller, with their brave immigrant friends and a very endearing Corgi, Miles. Vince and Trudi live happily in their “California bubble” until Vince is knocked down by a young punk in a parking lot. His sense of shame and rage, resulting from feelings of age-related vulnerability, triggers a first-time interest in guns. Trudi resists, but later, an unprovoked attack on Miles and Vince – and a growing friendship with two courageous Syrian refugees – changes her mind. With very unexpected consequences. There is plenty of dark humor and political satire in FINAL NOTICE, as well as touching scenes and outright suspense. So expect to laugh out loud, dry some tears, and bite your nails (not necessarily in that order). It is, despite the somewhat “sci-fi” premise of the watch, a very realistic reflection of American society and the many problems we face today.

Never Been Found


Kenneth S. Kappelmann - 2018
    Now, her father has been found executed and a serial killer is leaving a trail of female bodies across the city. Are these cases related? Who could be behind such a wide spread epidemic of organized crime. As the case unwinds and more bodies stack up, O'Malley must choose between what his gut is telling him, and what the case is being designed to show. Will O'Malley find the killer, or is the killer leading the detective to a deadly frame-up of a young man in over his head? The missing girl may hold the answer, if only she could be found.

Water Memory


Daniel Pyne - 2021
    But when pirates seize the cargo ship she’s on, she must decide whether to risk her life to save her fellow passengers.Sentro’s training takes over, and she’s able to elude her captors, leaving bodies in her wake. But her problems are just getting started. Her memory lapses are getting more frequent, symptoms of serial-concussion syndrome.As she plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with the pirates, she pushes herself to survive by focusing on thoughts of her children. She’s never told them what she really does for a living, and now she might not get the chance.While her memories make her vulnerable, motherhood makes her dangerous.

Bandwidth


Eliot Peper - 2018
    But when a close brush with death reveals that the influence he wields makes him a target, impossible cracks appear in his perfect, richly appointed life.Like everyone else, Dag relies on his digital feed for everything—a feed that is as personal as it is pervasive, and may not be as private as it seems. As he struggles to make sense of the dark forces closing in on him, he discovers that activists are hijacking the feed to manipulate markets and governments. Going public would destroy everything he’s worked so hard to build, but it’s not just Dag’s life on the line—a shadow war is coming, one that will secure humanity’s future or doom the planet to climate catastrophe. Ultimately, Dag must decide the price he’s willing to pay to change the world.

The Tracker


Chad Zunker - 2017
    With the past behind him and his future staked on law school, he is moonlighting as a political tracker, paid to hide in crowds and shadow candidates, recording their missteps for use by their opponents. One night, after an anonymous text tip, Sam witnesses a congressional candidate and a mysterious blonde in a motel indiscretion that ends in murder, recording it all on his phone.Now Sam is a target. Set up to take the fall and pursued by both assassins and the FBI, he is forced to go on the run. Using the street skills forged during his troubled youth — as well as his heightened mental abilities — Sam goes underground until he can uncover who is behind the conspiracy and how far up it goes. (Revised edition: This edition of The Tracker includes editorial revisions.)

The Red Cobra


Rob Sinclair - 2017
    Now living in a secret location, under the new identify of James Ryker, he wants nothing more than to be left alone, the chance to start a new life away from chaos, violence, destruction and deceit.It’s not long, however, before Ryker’s short-lived idyll is destroyed when he is tracked down by Peter Winter, his ex-boss at the JIA. Winter brings with him news of the murder of a woman in Spain, Kim Walker, whose fingerprints match those of one of Ryker’s former adversaries who’s been missing presumed dead for years - an infamous female assassin known as the Red Cobra.A cyberattack at the JIA led to the Red Cobra’s profile being compromised, and Winter believes JIA agents may now be at risk too, Ryker included. But Ryker knew the elusive Red Cobra better than anyone, and when he sees the grisly pictures of Kim Walker’s corpse, he has news for Winter - she isn't the assassin at all ...So just who is the mystery dead woman? And where is the real Red Cobra?

Punishment


Scott J. Holliday - 2018
    Thanks to a technologically advanced machine, detectives have access to the memories of the living, the dying, and the recently dead. But extracting victims’ experiences firsthand and personally reliving everything up to the final, brutal moments of their lives—the sights, the sounds, the scents, the pain—is also the punishment reserved for the criminals themselves.Barnes has had enough. Enough of the memories that aren’t his. Enough of the horror. Enough of the voices inside his head that were never meant to take root…until a masked serial killer known as Calavera strikes a little too close to home.Now, with Calavera on the loose, Barnes is ready to reconnect, risking his life—and his sanity. Because in the mind of this serial killer, there is one secret even Barnes has yet to see…

Masters of the Broken Watches


Razi Imam - 2020
    Time outside their lab has jumped forward by twenty-two hours. Minutes before this illogical space-time event, they were analyzing a mysterious glowing nodule extracted from an unknown marine specimen.News of this marine life reaches powerful governments, inadvertently triggering a race to hunt, capture and control it. But these governments and their nationalist leaders have never faced a team of scientists known as the Paramarines. They have no idea to what lengths Sebastian and his Paramarines will go in order to protect the species from capture and exploitation.The first of a multi-book series, this genre-bending novel leaves readers on the edge of their seats. Thrilling like Blake Crouch and science-driven like Ted Chang, all approached in ways you’ve never seen before. A captivating adventure, a heartbreaking story of love, and a true display of human ingenuity and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.

Constance


Matthew FitzSimmons - 2021
    For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination against nature. For young Constance “Con” D’Arcy, who was gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it’s terrifying.After a routine monthly upload of her consciousness—stored for that inevitable transition—something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in the clinic, it’s eighteen months later. Her recent memories are missing. Her original, she’s told, is dead. If that’s true, what does that make her?The secrets of Con’s disorienting new life are buried deep. So are those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who’s just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder—all over again.

Impermanent Universe: A Sci Fi Thriller


Vern Buzarde - 2021
    I highly recommend it to Sci-Fi fans." - Pikasho Deka...Readers' Favorites.When NASA computer scientist Tess Carrillo watches Ryan Quinn die in a spaceship seventy million miles away, her life becomes a blurry web of misery and vodka.But when a mysterious visionary recruits her to lead a team of eccentric experts in a top-secret effort to create the mind of the first sentient artificial intelligence, her life starts to change in unfathomable ways.And now the machine is waking…But there’s a problem.It’s networking… With another dimension.As the AI evolves, dimensional lines start to blend and fray, opening a door to another world… One with him. Only in this reality, Ryan is in a rock band, and Tess is an artist, both on the cusp of fame.As Tess finds herself moving back and forth between separate realities, she starts to question if either is real. And if so…which one?The answer lies in secrets more terrifying than anything she could imagine.Equipped only with clues scattered throughout her consciousness, time, and space, she struggles to make sense of the separate realities that seem to be colliding.As the puzzle pieces fall into place, a terrible threat is revealed, and she’s forced to face a shocking truth before both worlds end.If you love face-paced page-turners with unforgettable characters and real science, Impermanent Universe will keep you reading well beyond your self-allotted time.Join the adventure.“Outstanding Science Fiction....one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. And I read a lot." - Amazon Reviewer"Both Impermanent Universe and The Navigator are exquisitely crafted novels that will keep you reading well beyond your self-allotted time. Creative beyond belief, they give one a sense of truth regarding the immortality of Being through multifaceted forever-regenerative Consciousness." - Amazon Reviewer"This book is a treasure for those who love in-depth philosophical science fiction material" - Amazon Reviewer

Afterlife


Marcus Sakey - 2017
    He wakes without a scratch. The building is in ruins. His team is gone. Outside, Chicago is dark. Cars lie abandoned. No planes cross the sky. He’s relieved to spot other people — until he sees they’re carrying machetes.Welcome to the afterlife.Claire McCoy stands over the body of Will Brody. As head of an FBI task force, she hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. A terrorist has claimed eighteen lives and thrown the nation into panic. Against this horror, something reckless and beautiful happened. She fell in love… with Will Brody. But the line between life and death is narrower than any of us suspect — and all that matters to Will and Claire is getting back to each other.From the author of the million-copy bestselling Brilliance Trilogy comes a mind-bending thriller that explores our most haunting and fundamental question: What if death is just the beginning?

Waking Iceman


C.R. Wahl - 2019
    But who was this Iceman, what was he doing high on a glacier 8000 years ago, and why was he carrying a strange metallic cylinder? Archaeologists can only speculate, but neuroscientist Doctor Lisa Cho knows a better way. Young and ambitious, Dr. Cho is at the threshold of developing technology capable of replicating the neural pathways of the human brain and has devised an audacious plan; she wants to wake the Iceman from his primeval slumber and let him provide the answers to his past. But the Iceman’s story is not what anyone expected.As Cho seeks to understand the Iceman’s origin, her path converges in France with a brilliant theoretical physicist on his own mission to unravel the meaning of the Iceman’s cryptic artifact. Their quests become intertwined and increasingly perilous as they inch closer to the truth and the mystery behind the enigmatic Iceman. Waking Iceman is a far-reaching science fiction thriller that takes the reader on a sweeping journey from the inner mind of an ancient human to a parallel world with a profound secret. It’s a tale that raises deep questions: Is information more fundamental than mass and energy? Is there more to human consciousness than basic biology? Can love survive an 8000 year divide?  And what is real and what’s only a dream? For Cho, the answers will come at a price—sending her and everyone else on a collision course with destiny.More at: https://crwahl.com

Valhalla Station


Chris Pourteau - 2019
    Food, entertainment, safety, security--SynCorp provides it all. In return, the Company requires complete loyalty and obedience to corporate law.The Soldiers of the Solar Revolution claim life under SynCorp is slavery cloaked in comfort. They launch their rebellion, targeting the pillars of corporate production: sabotaging refineries on Mars, shattering Callisto's orbital ring. Meanwhile, brutal pirates siphon off Company resources in the Belt, and hackers tap into citizens' implants, addicting them to fantasies shaped from their own dreams.Besieged on all sides, SynCorp's Five Factions are in retreat. The rebels aim to destroy the Company to free mankind. But does mankind really want to be freed?

Thin Air


Richard K. Morgan - 2018
    . . and it promises to be a publication to remember.An ex-corporate enforcer, Hakan Veil, is forced to bodyguard Madison Madekwe, part of a colonial audit team investigating a disappeared lottery winner on Mars. But when Madekwe is abducted, and Hakan nearly killed, the investigation takes him farther and deeper than he had ever expected. And soon Hakan discovers the heavy price he may have to pay to learn the truth.

Runner


Patrick Lee - 2014
    While out on a run in the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she’s running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal—to kill the fleeing child. After Dryden helps her evade her pursuers, he learns that the eleven year old, for as long as she can remember, has been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. But she doesn’t know much beyond her own name, Rachel. She only remembers the past two months of her life—and that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and the hidden men in charge.Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an accident five years ago, agrees to help her try to unravel her own past and make sense of it, to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and earth to find them both. Although Dryden is only one man, he’s a man with the extraordinary skills and experience—as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team. But, as he slowly begins to discover, the highly trained paramilitary forces on their heels is the only part of the danger they must face. Will Rachel’s own unremembered past be the most deadly of them all?