REVIEW - THE FAMILY EXPERIMENT BY JOHN MARRS

  

Title: The Family Experiment
Author: John Marrs
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Futuristic,
               Speculative Fiction, Dystopian
Release Date: 9th May 2024 

BLURB
The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child or risk it all for the chance of a real baby . . . 

Goodreads Link

REVIEW
The Family Experiment is set in the same universe as John Marrs' other novels The One, The Passenger, The Minders and The Marriage Act, so has all the futuristic elements within them in this book too. Such as the driverless cars, the marriage act, the DNA soul mate match as well as “15 Minute Cities” where everyone lives within just a 15 minute walk away from everything residents would need such as shops, workplaces, and healthcare. In this world there are still “pandemic lockdowns” occurring on a fairly regular basis so most people work from home. The virtual reality world and AI have made even more advancements, there is a company called Re:born and they actually have an advert advertising their upcoming service. They are a company where you can order a metaverse baby. It can be a 'new' baby, or a duplicate of your current child at an age of your choosing or more eerily a replacement for a loss.
You can pick & choose age, sex, eye & hair colour, skin tone, body shape, their accent, interests & speed of growth. Re:born advertise that "Designers can create the perfect blend of you & your partner just like mother nature intended"
These children have a digital memory, they have photo realistic faces & bodies that can react to you, the parent by using facial tracking & voice recognition. There is a deposit payable and then a monthly subscription fee of £19.99
Re:born is part of a larger company called Awakening Entertainment who also own the new TV Reality show called The Family Experiment. 11 contestants who have been through a lengthy application and vetting process. These prospective parents will wear a slimline headset which are about the size of normal sunglasses and a special “Haptic suit” which have thousands of tactile sensors which allow its wearer to feel every sensation of whatever they are doing in the MetaVerse. Over the next 9 months the contestants compete with each other, bringing up their child that will grow much rapidly than a normal child. The MetaBabies start out as newborns for the first month and jump quite a few years at a time until the final month when they are 18 years old and grown adults. Viewers can watch these parents with their MetaBabies 24 hours a day! The viewers get to vote which parents have to face the monthly challenge such as croup or chicken pox, despite the fact it has been eradicated in the real world.

Theres In App purchases for the viewers which mean you can spend time in the same room as the contestants and MetaBabies without the contestants knowing and literally watch the action as it unfolds. A monthly lottery is also held that allows the winner to interact & enjoy spending one on one time with the MetaChildren themselves.

As for the contestants they are given £250,000 the amount needed to raise a RealWorld child from birth to eighteen. However, it is up to the parents if/how they use it. It can be spent on education, health care, entertainment, travel & immersive experiences and other in App purchases to be used within the MetaVerse.

The Family Experiment is a very interactive for both contestants and viewers. The viewers’ interaction is encouraged and they become very judgmental using a system of red hearts if they approve of what the parents are doing and black hearts if they don’t. The viewers also get to vote for an ultimate winner after the 9 months is done. It is a very black and white ending as the losers see their MetaChild permanently switched off and also lose any of the £250,000 they still have at that time. The Winners are given a choice, they can keep any of the £250,000 they have left and their MetaChild, Or pull the plug on their MetaChild and receive a quarter of a million pounds to start a family in the real world. The money will be paid on the live birth of their child whether that child is conceived by traditional means, IVF, surrogacy or adoption.

It soon becomes apparent that each contestant has a past, a secret they are desperately trying to hide from the viewers. All the contestants have issues/problems to hide or overcome. They all have their unique reasons as to why they want to take part, to have the MetaChild, or to have a final goal of being able to afford a real world child, and some are taking part to further careers and simply make money. Newspapers report on The Family Experiment, saying that it is the return of the original great social experiments.

The book is very cleverly presented in different types of chapters and sections. There’s the “show” parts that Autumn Taylor presents. There’s adverts for Re;Born, then statistics 'information' on the individual parents such as ages, jobs, and backgrounds. There are also the online chat parts where viewers speak to each other about what is currently happening and what they think. At times the viewers in this chat are more aware in some cases than us the reader. As online chat know who Adam is, when Zoe accidentally calls Lenny, Adam. It is through the chats that more facts are revealed to the reader.

There are also the chapters telling you what is happening with the contestants both in the MetaVerse with their MetaChild and in the real world with their relationships and how they are coping with the virtual and real-world balance.

I really enjoyed the references to the other books such as the driverless car hijacking in The Passengers, the finding your one true soul mate partner in The One, and the family dynamics in The Marriage Contract. There were also some character crossovers too within the book but you don’t have to have read all the other books to be able to read and thoroughly enjoy this one. There is so much packed into this one book with all the different contestants, their reasons for wanting to take part in the reality show, the secrets they are hiding and why they are wishing to hide them. The contestants may all be in the same experiment but they all handle the situation differently. For example, Cadman, uses sponsorship to generate more interest and earn money at every single stage of their MetaChild growing up, from the baby clothes and other outfits as the child grows to the furniture in both their virtual and real world apartments. Slowly but surely the secrets of the contestants are revealed and they are eliminated from the show until there are just two contestants left, and there is one heck of a twist as one contestant divulges some shock revelations about the company behind the show and his treatment at their hands. The ugly truth of how the technology behind The Family Experiment show was made and finessed.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were, Wow.....just wow! A fantastic, well thought out, highly detailed plot with likeable, relatable characters all in a futuristic, yet believable world.....loved it!

Summing up, if you love speculative, futuristic fiction that makes you stop and think wow that’s crazy, but at the same time wow that could actually happen then this is a must read book for you!

 

REVIEW - WITHSTANDING ANARCHY - DARK NATION BY GRACE HAMILTON

  

Title: Withstanding Anarchy
Series: Dark Nation
Author: Grace Hamilton
Genre: EMP, Post Apocalyptic
Release Date: 8th May 2024

BLURB
In a World Without Power, their True Strength is Family—Blood and Found.

After an EMP left civilization wrecked, survival is a daily struggle—something Deb and her group know all-to-well. Having found her ex-husband and Carol’s two sons, the anticipated happy reunion was anything but. With danger surrounding them, they’re all stuck together hiding from Mike, the abusive tyrant who held them captive in a work gang. Worse he’s the father of Carol’s unborn child and he wants them both back. At any cost.

As tensions in the camp rise and conflicts escalate, the atmosphere in the camp grows increasingly volatile. Minor disagreements escalate into fierce conflicts, supplies dwindle, and trust begins to erode, threatening to tear apart the fragile bonds they’ve formed. Now, they all must put their differences behind them and rally together to stop Mike before more people die.

He’s made it abundantly clear that he’s not leaving without Carol and their child.

And he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way…

Goodreads Link

REVIEW
Once again, I would say that the cover depicts a scene from within the book really well. I think all the covers of the books in this series have a great cohesive look. I bet they look amazing in paperback on a bookshelf!

I love the first line of the blurb “In a World Without Power, their True Strength is Family—Blood and Found” it really fits this whole Dark Nation series really well.

The book picks up more or less where the last one ended. Mike is injured and alone wandering about, probably 'lost' but determined to survive and live on for two main reasons. Firstly, to find Carol who is pregnant with his child and strongarm her into being back with him. Though his main focus is his child, at times he seems to hope Carol will become the woman he wants her to be. Mike then wants to rebuild his workforce, which will be from scratch as he has lost everyone at this stage. Starting over doesn’t seem to faze him at all, he thinks he can build more, build stronger and even bigger, all for his yet unborn child.

His second reason for surviving is to hunt down Deb, Bobbi and Jonah and teach them a lesson for escaping. His main target for torture when he catches her is Deb. Mike seems to think all his problems stem from this one woman. If it weren’t for Deb, he would still have Carol and his unborn child with him, as well as his right-hand woman Marie. He is infuriated about losing Marie, not only as his second in command but as his future female companion who wanted to bring up his child with. He had even begun to fantasise with the idea of having more children, this time with Marie. Mike really does want to build his own empire and have some sort of legacy. Mike had never thought about or wanted children until Carol became pregnant, then the idea of leaving a piece of him behind when he had gone., having a legacy began to appeal to him. He also liked the idea of 'ruling' with a son or daughter by his side. His son/daughter would be totally loyal to him, his blood, someone he could totally trust. Mike pushes himself to go on and comes across the small cabin of an older family, Lemuel, his wife Mary and John, Lemuel’s younger brother. Of course, Mike cannot reveal how he really came to be injured so he spins a tale to suit his needs, hoping to play on the sympathy of Mary. It’s not long until they are cleaning his wound and giving him precious antibiotics to fight the infection that has already taken hold. Mike is happy with the way he is being cared for and is gaining valuable information about Colton, such as the whereabouts of his cabin just half an hour away.

Deb, Bobbi, Jonah and Carol are trying to settle in as best as they can but to say the atmosphere is frosty is an understatement! From the natural suspicion about newcomers, to a little resentment at now having to make supplies stretch and then the muttered and at times blatant verbal jibes directed toward Carol from her eldest son Tommy things are not working well at Colton and Mollys settlement. There is also friction between Colton and Deb, old grievances are still simmering and seeing the happy family dynamic between Colton, Molly and baby Jack is at times too much for Deb to watch. However, when disasters strike one after another the two sides have to work together to defeat Mike once and for all.

I personally loved the dynamic between Laura and Bobbi. They both excluded due to Laura being in a wheelchair and Bobbi still struggling with her arm injury from helping fix the dam and have to stay at camp with little Jack. With Bobbi being a nursery teacher in her life before the EMP she soon befriends Jack and join forces with Laura in doing tasks they can manage together. I had enjoyed the subtle hints around the budding romance for the future for Bobbi.

It was interesting that though Colton and Molly’s group had fought for their survival and settlement they had become quite naïve and at times failed to see that they were being led down a certain route by Colton’s ex-Marine colleague Mike. Just when you thought Mike could not stoop any lower, he did. I thought it was great how Molly sort of played go between with her group and Deb’s group and they finally pulled together.

There are more devastating losses for the group to cope with, before the two groups have to regroup, and reunite to attempt to lure Mike in and get rid of him once and for all.

Though Mike may be hallucinating due to pain and infection it doesn’t mean he is going to be easy to take down. Mike’s marine training comes automatic, second nature to him, so he won't go down without a hard fight and being the man he is he fights dirty and tries to take as many people down with him.

There were some fantastic characters in this series, not just the main ones, ones lost along the way and of course I loved the inclusion of Laura’s service dog Argent who warned the group of danger on a few occasions. I also thought it great that Laura though was confined to a wheelchair, the group made adaptations for her wheelchair and she was still an equal voice and member of the survivors group. I liked the hints at the future of the society and the settlement, with both the younger and older characters romances and the possibilities that could lay ahead for them.

I really enjoyed reading this series, and thought it was interesting how the two main groups of characters ended up being related. I have to admit I desperately wanted Carol, Deb, Bobbi and Jonah to find a place they could settle down and call home as well as for Carol to be free of Mike and reunited with her two sons.

Summing up, this book continues to build the momentum with continuing losses to a final battle and a shocking conclusion. Truly loved this series . . . what am I going to read now?