Almost Human: What happens when the line between ape and man is blurred?

by Kenneth L. Decroo

Almost Human is a thriller where creatures with the enormous strength and power of a chimpanzee and the intelligence and size of a human are sought out and discovered in a remote compound in equatorial Africa. The special bond between trainers and their animals is central to the story. Drs. Ken Turner and Fred Savage follow rumors of chimp-human hybrids. The scientists want to study the hybrids but government operatives want to exploit them. The resulting conflicts threaten Turner and Savage's research and their lives, as well as the lives of many others. Can they stop the murderous onslaught in time?

297 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 6, 2015

About the author

Kenneth L. Decroo truly believes you must live a life worth writing about. Before he became an educator and consultant for universities and school districts, he worked in the world of research and wild animal training in the motion picture industry for many years. He holds advanced degrees in anthropology, instructional technology and education. He lives and writes in the San Bernardino Mountains with his wife, Tammy. When not writing and lecturing, he loves to ride his BMW adventure motorcycle down the Baja peninsula to beaches and bays without names. More about his adventures can be found on his blog, http://bajamotoquest.com.

Reviews

[Steven Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great storytelling

First, the good. The premise of the novel was great, like a Congo meets Planet of the Apes. The possibility of the events actually happening, made the book far more interesting and frightening. I also loved the authors storytelling style. I feel as though I could've been sitting around a campfire as he told his story of man like apes. I also loved the authors character development and descriptive narrative. I found myself actually caring about the characters, and that's extremely hard to do, especially with so many important characters in this book. His descriptive writing really made me feel right next to the characters as they took in a Circus in Mexico, toured the chimpanzees habitat in Reno, or were entrenched in the jungles of Africa.
The bad...there were FAR too many misspelled words, incorrect grammar, and cases of autocorrect gone wrong. I found myself distracted from the story because of these errors, which made me very frustrated. All those small issues could have been fixed by a simple read through or good editing. It would have taken a single day, maximum, to fix. My only other issue, and it's minor, is the end of the novel felt a bit rushed. There were so many things happening after they befriended Francois, but the plot was rushed. It went from one thing to the next, weeks passed, and there was no real storytelling involved. It was boom, boom, boom, the end. It was a little disappointing, especially because one of my "positives," was his character development and descriptive narrative.
In the end, I really enjoyed the book, and I'm hoping for Part 2!