Exodus 2022

NOTE: I received the book from the author in exchange for my honest review.

I hadn't even heard of Kenneth before I read EXODUS 2022. Nor did I know what to expect of the book. I do love science fiction, and thrillers are usually blood-boiling, so I thought "Why not?"

There were scenes that had me laughing. By the end it had me teary eyed and somewhere in the middle I was pointing at the evil dude, saying "That's what you deserve, mister!"

Writing style:
Clean, well structured, and professional. The action flowed from one scene to the next without any stumbling. It was definitely a page turner.
Also, I can't say how much I loved the paragraph length. SHORT!

Story line:
I think I can count on my one hand the novels that kept me guessing until show more the very end. EXODUS 2022 was one of them. I had no idea what was going to happen until, literally, the very last page.
So, what's the story?
A young man by the name of Joe Stanton is struck by hallucinations. Of the daughter he never had. After a video of him going out of it is uploaded in the global web, he is noticed by a genius scientist and a weapons baron who are suddenly interested in solving the mystery of several Pacific coast victims. Things get tense and complicated along the way ans the mystery gets unraveled.

Themes:
-The power of money and how it can corrupt people;
-The human influence over anything seems to be mostly destructive;
-There are other sentient beings living on this planet. We'll do well to remember that.

Characters:
Joe Stanton was a quiet, peaceful young man. He had his life ahead of him, a life he was hopeful to share with his girlfriend Ella. He had an open attitude, a huge heart and a mind set in the right place. For someone placed in his situation, Joe was doing admirably. He knew what was waiting for him in a week's time, but he never lost sight of what he thought was important. He was a strong man, even when perceived as week, for strength is not always found in the physical body.

Ella was not a girl, who would run at the first sight of trouble. In fact, I thought that was going to be how events would unfurl, but I was proved wrong. Ella stood by Joe's side until the very end. She suffered a lot - seeing him fall apart, seeing him struggle to remain with his mind, feeling helpless beside him, being kidnapped, harassed and everything else... Despite all that, Ella remained strong and brave.

Beck... well, he was the antagonist. Not entirely, but to a certain extent, he made known that he was the force to be reckoned. And while the forces within him were the main evil, he was still one sick, egotistical man. He cared about nothing but himself. I despised him way before he became evil personified. He wasn't an admirable character to begin with - he was a murderer without a conscience. But he degraded even further as the story progressed. What I liked about him was that he wasn't a flat character. There was depth to him, layers upon layers and not even one of them was the the spectrum of goodness.
So yeah, lots of times I find myself rooting for the villain in a novel, but... dude, not this time.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that EXODUS 2022 was a journey I never expected to take, but am glad I took it. show less

EXODUS 2022 is the latest offering by Kenneth G. Bennett, the author of the lauded young adult series, THE GAIA WARS. An ecological, paranormal Sci-fi Thriller set in the year 2022, opens with 28 year old Joe Stanton waking up in a motel room on San Juan Island in Washington State, hysterical to find his lost daughter. Odd thing is, he doesn’t have a daughter. The police and ER doctor believe his delusions are drug-related but what they don’t know is that poor Joe isn’t the only one to have experienced these same hallucinations. Divers and fisherman from the Bering Sea to the Puget Sound, experienced almost this exact episode –resulting in their imminent death.

“A jolt of adrenaline traveled the length of his body, like a blast show more of electric current. His limbs twitched and his heart thumped in his chest. Ella felt Joe’s body quiver and tense. Heard him cry out: ‘No!’ She dropped her book. Spun around. Caressed his face. ‘Joe. Sweetie? Joe? You okay?’
He couldn’t hear her. He was deep underwater now, zooming toward a huge drifting shape. A shape he somehow recognized. Click! Skeleton. Brain. Lungs. Internal organs. Heart. Heart? The heart’s not beating. The heart is still. ‘No!’ Joe twisted and writhed, twitched and moaned. His face paled and a slick glaze of sweat coated his forehead. ‘She’s dead!’ he cried, his voice a guttural, strangled gurgle. A sound Ella barely recognized.
She gripped him by his shoulders. Shook him. ‘Joe! It’s me! You’re having a bad dream. Wake up.’ Joe stirred, and suddenly people up and down the beach were yelling. For a moment, Ella thought they’d heard her worried cries and were yelling at her. But everyone was staring at the water. Pointing and smiling and cheering. ‘Whales!’ someone shouted.” pp.44-45.

As Joe & his girlfriend, Ella, discern the images during these spells and who the voice is in his head, a very powerful and dangerous weapons contractor tries to identify the link with these occurrences and how his coterie might profit. But not all is as it seems as Joe comes face to face with a sentient being who needs his aid. And if he does help, at what cost?

Although sci-fi thrillers are not my typical cuppa tea, I must admit EXODUS 2022 is a provocative, unprecedented, spine-tingling novel; and coupled with the very germane “Blackfish” documentary & images from Taiji, Kenneth G. Bennett’s eco-thriller has stayed with me long after the last page. This is a thinking person's book that will surely instigate much discussion. I was given an early copy to read in exchange for my honest review. I can absolutely see this as a feature film. And the ending warrants a sequel! Add EXODUS2022 to your to-be-read list—sooner than later. show less

Well, the other reviewers have pretty well revealed the plot of the book, so if you are reading this review for that, skip this one. I feel that I should reveal my bias, I like science fiction, and a good story that is not too easily anticipated, and finally if the tale provides food for thought all the better. This book makes the grade, I enjoyed it a great deal and will be recommending it to my book groups. I suppose that it would be fair to say that you will end up wanting to know if there will be sequel as there are several possibilities available following the conclusion. My thanks to the author, publisher and Librarything for making thie story available for me to read.

Totally improbable "science fiction" should be labeled fantasy.

This implausible story opens with a strange ailment—Men who have been in the ocean are imagining that nonexistent daughters, each named Lorna Gwin, have been murdered—then the men die within 10-12 days. The thuggish least-successful son in a dysfunctional family, more powerful than the US government, a professional soldier with his own private army, has a machine that can read minds in great detail. This shows that the murdered-daughter hallucination is just the top of the iceberg. There are images of mysterious sea-creatures planted beneath, a whale-fall with a mysterious living tunnel in it leading—Where? Thee are also assorted murders done for petty reasons. One of show more the men doomed to die is pounded to a pulp, pepper-sprayed, falls overboard, about to drown, when a strange voice in his head declares that he must not, cannot die. Sound good yet? The villainous villain does/orders plenty more villainous things. Besides murders, he plants a chip in the unfortunate yet-alive man that spies on his thoughts, continually transmitting! Might that prove awkward after the man dies and is autopsied? No! "The device is bioreactive…It'll dissolve once cellular processes cease." The 4th man continues to hear a Voice, Lorna Gwin's mother, Mia, which comes from…wait for it…a whale! An orca whale (technically a dolphin) that was conveniently able to use sonar to cook the transmitter in his head. Then he and his girlfriend discover that they can communicate through telepathy! Just like with Mia. The real message she's been trying to transmit has nothing to do with HER dead daughter Lorna Gwin—that was incidental. Classified Navy sonar has been interfering with critical cetacean communication, and needs to be turned off for a particular 12 hours coming up soon. Mia has transmitted a tingle from herself, to #4, to an admiral who can perhaps get the sonar stopped. Can Mia escape this polluted world with her entire pod by going through the mysterious tunnel? Can #4 survive unlike #s 1-3? Do you care? Then read this book.

I'm giving two stars instead of one because it is not as unreadable as SOME books I've been asked to review. I was given an e-copy of this book through the LibraryThings Early Reviewer program in exchange for an unbiased review. show less

Others have commented that the "science" is improbably or inaccurate - SO WHAT??? It's a GOOD story, which kept me enthralled for a few extended sittings. The characters are engaging and the environmental warnings are, alas, not so far-fetched.

The only thing that kept me from a higher rating was the fact that I found the conclusion to be a bit abrupt. An epilogue could have contained a more satisfying ending.

This was a quirky fast moving scifi yarn, I enjoyed the relationship between the main 2 human characters. The approach of animal human interaction was one I have not seen in a book before like this. The scifi was not too heavy so would appeal even to people who are not that keen on scifi. The main baddy character was surprisingly real to life, depressingly, and I felt the author was keenly making a point about the role of the defence industry in society. The book contained quite short chapters good for reading small chunks in a spare moment.

What a surprisingly intriguing book, and well worth the read! A young priest suffering from bizarre hallucinations becomes entangled in a strange situation, which will take him on an incredible, mysterious and frightening journey. The book is very well paced, with clues being given at regular intervals, and making the story even more compulsive. I don't want to give away the plot so I won't say too much about it. The book deals with whales, and other sea creatures and land animals, and their communications, disrupted by human sonar mapping of the sea bed. It is a book that I could not put down! The ending leaves you stunned and breathless, wondering about this phenomenon and wanting to know more. Certainly gets you thinking. If you show more enjoy sci fi, this is a must read! show less