Annihilation Point

Code Breakers #3

by Colin F. Barnes

How much sacrifice should anyone have to give? Petal and Gabriel are forced to decide, as the mad, digital entity, Elliot Robertson, is determined to dominate the world. His influence, spread by an insurgent group, The Ronin, seeks to control and enslave the last of humanity. With time running out, Petal and Gabriel must travel to the far reaches of the abandoned lands in order to repair a server they believe will be the key to defeating Elliot and his ronin. All the while, Petal has a ticking time bomb inside her head: Gerry Cardle's uploaded consciousness. The code of which is mutating, but to what end? Together with their few allies, Petal and Gabriel must face either victory or total annihilation.

Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Amazon, Speculative Fiction

364 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 21, 2013

About the author

Colin F. Barnes is a British author of thrillers featuring working-class heroes doing extraordinary things. He is published by 47North, Audible, and Podium. He is represented by Paul Lucas of Janklow & Nesbit.

Reviews

[Jennifer Bender]

Annihilation Point combines a good, solid, dystopian sci-fi rollick with an insightful and seemingly effortless peek into the inner-workings of human and social consciousness. These intelligent layers of theme based in morality, loyalty, guilt, regret, love, and sacrifice, are so transparently wrought into the fiber of the story that I often found myself reacting, both physically and emotionally, to an otherwise straight forward plot line. You know it’s a good book when you have to put it down for a moment to get your heart rate under control! With a healthy dose of both joy and tragedy, an often poetic and sometimes startling style of writing, and head-spinning plot twists, Colin F Barnes will keep you engaged in Book 3 of the Techxorcist series from start to finish. (If you have not already read Books 1 & 2 in this series you will definitely want to start there... and they will be well worth your time.) Having just finished the series, I am already feeling a sense of withdrawal for these thoroughly developed characters and for Barnes words in my head. Luckily the author appears to have left open the possibility for an addition or two to this excellent “trilogy”!

[Norm Davis]

Book 3 in the series, even the blurb can be a spoiler.

I enjoyed the book & found it hard to put down. I read the ebook and audiobook simultaneously.

My Library's Tech Info:
Gamma: Code Breakers #3

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Goodreads Aubiobook
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Sales Blurb

How much sacrifice should anyone have to give?

Petal and Gabriel are forced to decide, as the mad, digital entity, Elliot Robertson, is determined to dominate the world. His influence, spread by an insurgent group, The Ronin, seeks to control and enslave the last of humanity.

With time running out, Petal and Gabriel must travel to the far reaches of the abandoned lands in order to repair a server they believe will be the key to defeating Elliot and his ronin. All the while, Petal has a ticking time bomb inside her head: Gerry Cardle’s uploaded consciousness. The code of which is mutating, but to what end?

Together with their few allies, Petal and Gabriel must face either victory or total annihilation.

[Dustin]

There is a lot of death in this book. I dropped one star off because the author chose to skip over the most obvious choice of survival. If an enemy AI is implanting chips into innocents to control them as pawns and our heroes are subduing these innocents by tying them up to try to save their life. The heroes should also have learned from past mistakes and destroyed the chips in the process. As if those people ever get loose while still in the AIs control then they will fight to the death trying to forge ahead with the AI's agenda. It felt like logic was thrown out the window based on previous outcomes in Book 2 which caused a lot of innocent people to die.

[Steve Esso]

I enjoyed the first two sequels of Code Breakers (Alpha and Beta), but this third sequel (Gamma) is just a level above all the others. The pace of actions, the level of described technology, the characters, the plot... I couldn't put it down. Read it in a day, that was really like travelling to that post apocalyptic near future world.
I did also appreciate the reference to Neuromancer and the aim associated with reading sci-fi. So far, this is the best sequel of that brilliant Series.

[Eric Arseneau]

I really didn't enjoy this all that much, I needed something to read for driving, and it did help pass the time. There were a number of inconsistencies and I just had the overall impression that I didn't enjoy the book. I'd like to be more specific, but I can't put my finger on it anymore.

I did however finish the entire series as I wanted to know what happened to some of the characters, even though they really weren't consistent or made too much sense sometimes.

[Michael]

This installment of the series kinda hits the reset button on everything. The focus is exclusively on Petal and Gabriel, and their quest to locate the server that can save society and Gerry. At this point, it's kinda hard to explain if you haven't read the previous books in the series. If you haven't read the first two books, don't even bother with this one.

[Gustavo]

This is the weakest book of the four, as it has the characters on their own, in a chase that has almost no point, and is resolved in a completely unsatisfactory way,. After the end of the pointless quest, the book gets better, reaching the others.

[Dexter]

This could have easily been overpowered protagonist vs overpowered antagonist, but thankfully it avoids that and focuses more on the side characters. Definitely the best book of the series, and does a lot with character development which the others kinda lacked.

[Ricky McConnell]

Good book

[R.B. Harkess]

As usual, dont expect a precis of the plot. Plenty of others have already done that.
So, harping back on my review of the first volume of this trilogy, still delighted by the other books. In all fairness, the second volume did suffer from a touch of 'middle book sag', but nowhere near as bad as, say, the second Matrix movie. All three had the same flavours of William Gibson and Pat Cadigan. Very believable cyberpunk with feasible tech, almost near-sf in its integrity.
Unlike quite a few SF books I've seen published recently, the Techxorcist trilogy doesn't sacrifice actual quality of writing for the sake a printing a clever idea. The characters are very three dimensional, and the cast is big enough to explore the different angles of the plot without feeling stretched.
Bottom line: very good read, difficult to put down.

[Bluecobras09]

As City Earth is pulling itself back together after being left behind by the family, Petal and Gerry continue to look for each other while Petal also looks for her beginning. What she finds is her history is tied in with the servers Old Grey and Omega. She also finds her real father, but he is not the loving father she would hope for as all he is interested in is power. And once again the citizens of City Earth find themselves under someones thumb and Petal and Gerry find they can't trust anyone. As the death toll climbs, everyone finds that sacrifice is necessary if they are going to stop the most dangerous threat they have ever run into.

The story gets better with each book and I really enjoyed this one even with the loss of so many.

Recommended read.

[Inara]

2.8 stars

This series just kept going on and on. The prequel and the first two books were worthwhile, the plot is good, the writing is solid and the characters are well-developed, but somewhere after the middle of this third book, things just started dragging and I couldn't push through to finish the book or the series (there's also a fourth book).

With that said, the components of the books I did read (prequel, first & second books) were enjoyable. The series could have ended sooner and it would have been great, I just think it went on too long and I couldn't stay focused.

I might pick it up at a later date and finish it though. I think maybe I just need to read a couple of different books and then come back to this.

[Darlene]

So much action

As well as so much sadness as two (or more) factions fight over the former City Earth. So much destruction and deaths. It was an emotional book. Favorite characters lost, some found in a way. This book is classic good versus evil. You'll feel the pain and the triumph of the characters. I have no idea what could possibly be in store for us in the final book of the series.

[Sarah]

Another excellent series that I discovered thanks to The Fussy Librarian and free-ness. He had me worried there for a bit... I tend to like my stories unrealistic and full of warm fuzzy happy endings. This wasn't quite that, but it didn't ruin my life, either. I definitely recommend giving this series a try. And now, sleep. I'm exhausted.

[charles joiner]

Great book. Read all three in the Techxorcist series. Recommend this to lovers of sci-fi. Hope to read more about Petal and Gerry, two of the main characters.

From the 1st book to the third one couldn't put them down. Read the series in 3 wks and I work a full time job.

[David Teachout]

A wonderful conclusion to the trilogy, leaving plenty of room for questions about how humanity deals with technology, just what consciousness is and the strength of personal relationships. That there's still plenty of action, fascinating characters and tension throughout definitely helps.

[Lee]

Great continuity between the three books so far. High level of suspense keeps you reading.

[Edric Unsane]

The third book in the Code Breakers series was action packed, fun and, overall, entertaining. I'm really enjoying the series and looking forward getting to the fourth book.

[Ryan Smith]

I really enjoy this series, its an amazing bunch of novels and i'm addicted to reading them!

[Chet]

This whole series (The Techxorcist series) is great. A little disappointed with the ending.

[Michael Rounding]

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