Marc Wayne

It’s not clear why the author chose to position this book as science fiction. Yes, it involves a tech company that has developed a teleportation device, but any present-day tech development—some new AI app or hot new social media platform—would have served the plot just as well.

It’s really just a murder mystery about the CEO of a tech company, JT, whose partner’s wife has been killed. It seems the killer may be after JT as well. But there are far too many extraneous characters and show more details that want to serve as red herrings but are really just cul de sacs that go nowhere. For instance, when our pair of protagonists are afraid the city cops may be in on the plot, much is made of getting a hold of JT’s state cop friend. But when they do, he gives a couple of sentences of advice, says he’ll look into a couple of things, and then is never heard from again. Or the guy who ran a camp that JT attended as a kid, who JT has hired to work for his charitable foundation, but who hates him for mysterious reasons—he’s gone by the end of the chapter and never heard from again, just one of many vague suspects tossed into the mix for no useful purpose. Characters are introduced, backgrounds hinted at but never fully clarified, and then they’re gone.

And there’s an almost literal deus ex machina at the end: an old military associate who turns up with night vision goggles and a rifle, saves our protagonists from getting shot, and then disappears into the night.

Our other protagonist is Angela, who witnesses the original murder and for implausible reasons becomes involved in the action. She is a recovering alcoholic with PTSD. We discover the source of her PTSD by the end of the book, and frankly, she became a much more interesting character after that, so I wish we’d known her story all along. Instead the author coyly teases us with glimpses of her flashbacks that turn out to be memories of not her trauma but someone else’s; they’re quite misleading, as if the author hadn’t decided what her trauma was going to be until toward the end of the book. This, along with all the characters and plot swerves that fell by the wayside, gave the book the feeling of an early draft that would have been improved enormously with some cleanup. show less

Quantum Reaction does its mystery/ suspense job well. A blind protagonist adds a realistic and new level of interest and anxiety to a pretty straightforward plot. The suspense was dialed way up as more than a few times I HAD to know what happened next. The protagonists are easy to like, the antagonists are sufficiently despicable. My only gripe was that there wasn’t enough sci-fi to warrant the classification. In that respect the cover art and title were a bit misleading. My disappointment show more waned once I viewed Quantum Reaction solely through a mystery lens. Mystery lovers will enjoy! show less

Heavier on the mystery than the sci-fi, which I would assume is fine for mystery readers. This would easily fit into an airport bookstore or something similar, as there is a series of near-death experiences, narrow escapes, and the other sorts of things one might expect from such a book.

The part I found most interesting was the religious group's tantrum in response to a technology mentioned in the book, which I'll omit as a spoiler. Every major new emerging technology gets reactions like show more this from the frightened superstitious herd, and that particular implication for this particular idea wasn't something I had thought of, but is absolutely something I expect to see happen if that technology gets anywhere near reality - or if it doesn't happen in my lifetime, it will happen whenever it does get here. show less

I found Quantum Reaction to be an excellent mystery, in a sci-fi setting. It is the not-too-distant future, with a world-changing technology on the brink of release to society. A murder is committed and the best witness, Angela, is far from the victim in distance and relationship. She becomes involved with the investigation, and potentially a target for the murderer. As she delves deeper, the list of suspects becomes longer, and wounds from her past start to surface.
The story quickly draws show more you in, and then pulls you along at breakneck speed as the search for the murder's identity and motive points to an emerging technology at the start-up QuantiPort, and it's IPO. Jealousy, money and control of this new technology are all possible reasons for a brutal murder, but was the victim really the target, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I really enjoyed Quantum Reaction, which is more mystery than sci-fi. There are enough references to technology in this glimpse of the future that really appealed to me as a sci-fi fan. I think you will enjoy this. show less