The Courier

Gerald Brandt
THE COURIER
Daw
Science Fiction / Cyberpunk

Call me shallow, but I often judge a book by the cover. Well. Not the book, but if the cover doesn't catch my eye, I may not pick it up and see what the story is about. THE COURIER has that grab-me-kind-of-cover. And, when I picked it up to read the synopsis, I was hooked.

Set in the future, it seems the world is past apocalyptic times, and has found a way to function, and thrive, and is right back to its old ways. Apparently, even in the distant future it is the corporations that run everything. Forget about factions. After the world is scorched by nuclear weapons, the city is divided into levels. Actual levels. Think one giant, underground parking garage. The farther down you go, show more the poorer you must be.

Orphaned, independent, and driven, sixteen-year-old Kris Ballard, has been on most of the Levels. She's a bike courier, making ends meet (barely) delivering packages from point A to point B. At the end of a shift, and despite a nagging feeling, Ballard accepts a last minute delivery. After picking up the parcel at one end of the city, she has to travel across town for the drop off.

Problem is, when she reaches point B, someone is inside the corporate building knifing her contact. Despite hightailing it out of the building, the killer saw her, and those behind the murder have the resources to trace her every move.

With the package still in her possession, Ballard is on the run. It seems like anywhere she seeks solace, she is immediately found. The different corporations want her for different reasons. There is no one she can trust . . . until she is forced to finally put her trust into someone. Ian Miller.

Miller works for A.C.E. and he is a lot like Ballard. A.C.E. is kind of like Greenpeace. They have a role in the future - stopping corporations from taking advantage of the innocent. Only now it is less about the package, and more about staying alive. Can Miller, Ballard, and A.C.E. survive attacks coming at them from every angle, and at every turn? Or is the gig finally up . . .

I loved Brandt's writing. Crisp. Clean. The action was non-stop. The world-building was epic. So much has been set up. There can be a fleet of Courier novels (and I hope there is) in Brandt's creation. As a reader you immediately bond with Kris Ballard, you care about her. She is a tough lead, a likable heroine. I will be keeping tabs on Brandt. He is clearly a writer worth following!

Phillip Tomasso
Author of the Severed Empire Series, and
The Vaccination Trilogy show less

This is book 1 in a series that I won't be continuing. Overall, I thought this was a fine popcorn read but it was sort of like reading James Cameron's Dark Angel TV series. It's fast-paced with plenty of action, and the writing style is readable enough, but it doesn't have anything new to say. I've read this plot, where the bad corporations are stepping all over the little people, a million times before. Oh, and the bad guy being a bad guy just because he's a bad guy... well...

Brandt, Gerald. The Courier. San Angeles No. t. DAW, 2016.
I have seen all the elements of Gerald Brandt’s The Courier in other places. The most intriguing element is the multileveled megacity of San Angeles. It is William Gibson’s Sprawl moved to the West Coast. Our spunky teenage motorcycle courier heroine is a character familiar from countless movies and young adult novels. So, too, are the corporate villains. In short, the novel is a fast-paced action adventure that owes a lot to Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic. It is not groundbreaking stuff, but it is fast-paced and readable. I do wish, though, that the story did more with the McGuffin in our heroine’s courier pouch. I am sure that is being saved for later volumes, but still it is show more disappointing not to be immediately gratified. 3 or 3.5 stars. show less

I heard about this book via the CBC list of 10 Canadian works of science fiction you need to read. That list also includes Quantum Night by Robert Sawyer and Company Town by Madeline Ashby which I have already read and reviewed. Since I thought all three were great I am going to have to go back and see what else I should read.

The Courier is the first book in a series set in a future when most of the habitable earth is covered by megacities. The west coast of California from San Francisco to San Diego is one continuous city in seven levels. Kris Ballard is a seventeen year old orphan who supports herself by working as a motorcycle courier. At the end of a day's work she is asked by her dispatcher to take one more package from level 4 to show more level 2 where Kris lives. She agrees to do so since the dispatcher tells her that she doesn't have to bring the paperwork in until the next morning so once she has delivered the package she can go home. Sounds good but when she gets to the drop-off location she finds a dead man with his killer just finishing up the job. She manages to get away on her motorcycle but when she locks up her bike at home she finds the killer already there. There follows a number of close calls with this killer and one other. Their ability to find her is due to the fact that every person has a tracking device imbedded into them at birth. It is possible to mask the tracker but Kris needs help from ACE, a counter corporate entity that tries to prevent the excesses of the megacorporations that essentially control everything. Ian Miller is assigned by ACE to help Kris but a mole in ACE keeps frustrating their plans. Miller is the first person Kris has felt safe with since her parents died and she is a little in love with him. Miller might return her feelings but their survival is more important than romance. Since this is a series it isn't really a spoiler to say that eventually Kris and Miller overcome the bad guys but it's quite the ride until they can do so. show less

Set in 2140 in a United States pretty much owned by 3 corporations. Sixteen year old Chris, orphaned, works as a bike courier and gets snared by corporate intrigue. Point of view shifts between Kris, Quincy: a killer-for-hire, Devon: a computer nerd, a Miller: an agent in an anti-corporate environmental group. Our heroine is able to do more than is realistic but, hey, that's what escapist fiction is all about.
Audio version is thrillingly read, great for staying awake on drives.

Kris is living on the fringes barely surviving as a motorcycle courier in a sprawling multilevel megacity in a future California. Offered the chance for a last run at the end of the day she takes it even when it is a bit out of her normal territory. Corporations use physical couriers to send data they can’t trust over the web. Multiple couriers are used and you never know if you are carrying anything important or just a blank data chip. Kris is on the run when someone tries to take the chip from her at the delivery site after killing the intended recipient. Not knowing who to trust she is sucked into a world of deadly corporate espionage where she is just grist for the mill as the corps run the world now. A good first book in a series show more and a good setup for future books. I liked it and I’ll be looking for more when they come out.


Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley show less

Near-future thriller about a young courier who is sent on a suspicious delivery, witnesses a murder, and finds herself caught in the middle of a cut-throat corporate war. The story is simple and fast-paced, the kind that could be easily translated to film, but I found its elements to be somewhat derivative (the tiered megacity concept is one I encountered just a little more than six months ago in another new novel.) There's nothing fresh or exciting here but it might serve as an adequate beach or airplane read. I didn't connect with any of the characters, and I'm not interested to read the follow-up.