by Harule Stokes
Book: Stand Alone
Publisher: Wave One Publishing
Pub Date: July 2013
Genre: Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Source: Author
Book Links: Goodreads Amazon
A murder has been committed in Westwood. Joseph Marshall, a newly graduated NextGen operative is sent to investigate the only suspect - one of the last remaining Fallen. Will he live long enough to solve the murder or die by the hands of one of the most powerful living weapons ever created?
During the Great War, the Northern Alliance was losing ground to its southern neighbor, Keynosa. The Keynosians were a people whose entire society was built around the manipulation of plant life. Unable to stem the overwhelming power of the Keynosian’s greatest weapon, the empowered soldier, the North made a desperate gamble, to create their own empowered. Thousands of volunteers offered their lives to the experiment in a process called The Sacrifice. From those thousands who gave themselves for their country, only a few hundred emerged, changed. They became the Fingers of God, the world’s most powerful living weapons. With the war over, these heroes, having fought and killed for their country, could not maintain their grip on reality. The process that created them corroded their minds, and they were given the moniker of Fallen. Their legacy continues on in their children, the NextGen.
Now more than 70 years after the war's end, the threat of the Keynosian remains. The progeny of the Fallen are tasked with securing a massive series of concentration camps called the Sectors. Constructed after the Great War, the Sectors hold the surviving Keynosian people and their living weapons, the empowered. With the Fallen lost, what can the Northern Alliance do to contain this threat? Their solution is the Peacemaker collar. A thin ring of metal, it gives a steady dose of a powerful drug that inhibits the potential of the empowered, but also rots the mind of the wearer.
In a world where morality is thrown to the wayside for the sake of security and the only path you can take are the one’s provided to you, is there a place where a young man can rise above it all?
My Review: I must say when I got this book, I didn't expect it to be so long. Nearly 600 pages, but a very good book. Once you get to the end, there is a question that will be with you. What else is there? There should be another book, or another book from a different view. The book just has to continue in some way..I need to know more.
So I did like how we went on a journey with Joseph, seeing him find himself. Learning to find what person he is, leads to many questions and wonder through his journey. Your told his emotions and the way he thinks. It gives a deeper understanding and you'll know why he makes most of his decisions.
You have some racial issues thrown into the story. The whole North and South deal. The whole situation is brought out and nothing is held back. That whole thing comes and goes and Joseph is on his journey once again. He runs into many things that lead him to do some soul searching. When he does his soul searching, you can the emotion from it. Also, the lessons that are thrown in. Some of them you can relate, learn from, and some more. All depends on the reader and what those parts mean to you. Oh and the detail in each page is so full and rich. There is no way you can't paint a picture of Josephs journey.
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