Omnifix

by Scott Mackay

Award-winning author Scott Mackay’s gripping science fiction thriller asks how far humanity would go to survive—if survival meant giving up their humanityTen years ago, they attacked.Launching hundreds of weapons platforms throughout the Earth’s solar system, the aliens used not fire or ordnance, but nanogens—biological warfare unlike anything humankind had ever known. Ultimately, the aliens were finally beaten back…but the dying had only begun.Now living in fortress cities, what is left of humanity hides from the remaining nanogens, while scientists like Alex Denyer work to deactivate the platforms left behind and try to find cures for the dying. When a new platform suddenly appears, Alex’s attempts to understand end with his being infected by a bio-weapon that will literally eat him alive.But there is a cure—Omnifix. It stops the nanogenic assault cold. As Alex discovers, it also changes the sufferer into a living weapon. And the more Alex changes, both in body and mind, the more he becomes determined to find the truth behind the aliens, the nanogens—and a most dangerous enemy who may be all too human…Hailed as “the breakout novel that will firmly establish him as a bona fide big name in 21st-century science fiction,” Scott Mackay’s Omnifix is “a terrific book, from first page to big ideas, believable characters, great action—it's all here" (Robert J. Sawyer, author of Hybrids).

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

316 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 3, 2004

About the author

Award-winning author Scott Mackay has over thirty-five published short stories to his credit and four novels: OUTPOST, THE MEEK, A FRIEND IN BARCELONA and COLD COMFORT, which was nominated for the 1999 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. He lives in Toronto.

Reviews

[Lance Cotton]

This was a really poorly written book. I googled other reviews and they were all positive; I can't see why. The dialogue between the characters is longwinded and painfully repetitive and serves no purpose but to inform the reader of the circumstances. How many times two characters stated things to each other that they surely already knew? I don't know.....mucho. It rendered a dull cardboard cutout setting. And Terminator cyborgness galore.....do we really need robots with eyes that glow red? I say don't introduce hard-science if you keep it limp.....and it was another one of those stories where the protaganist (an exotechnologist) conveniently seemed to excel in very different fields such as hardcore nanotechnology and microbiology. I only read it because I brought it on my holiday. Good thing it was a paperback or I would`ve thrown it in the sea and just paid the library later.

[Debs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entertaining book, but I would have been disappointed if I hadn't known in advance that it was going to get a little ridiculous because it's a great premise. The end, in particular, felt like he had gotten tired of writing and wanted to wrap things up in as few pages as possible, which definitely does the book a disservice.

[Alan Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has so many good ideas and has so much potential but there were a lot of inconsistencies, a lot of gaps, and a lot of poor choices made by the characters. Sci-fi still needs to make logical sense and it doesn’t seem like the author understands that. It’s really frustrating because, as I said, this book has so much potential but just falls really short in quite a few ways.

Overall though, a very interesting and engaging plot, and I was able to really get into this book, but I had to ignore a lot to do so.

2/5 stars for squandered potential.

[Elayna · Rating 3 out of 5]

NO SPOILERS

I gave this book 2.5 stars because even though the author’s my uncle I can’t say I enjoyed the book. The second half was definitely better than the first but I still wasn’t attached to the character and didn’t really care what happened to them. For the last 100 pages I just skimmed the book because it had already taken me more than a year to finish it (I stopped reading it for a few months).

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The universe presented here is interesting and the plot path is moderately believable. But the characters are plastic imitations.

This book has countless point blank statements of what emotion someone is feeling, people take completely unbelievable situations in stride, and every interaction is rehashed 2 or 3 times in the mind of the main character.

There is a lot of potential here, but the execution needs some work.

[Garet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Scott Mackay establishes a world where augmented humans experience discrimination, develops empathy to the situation over 100+ pages, then dehumanizes the entire population in a page. God forbid he becomes an amputee, lest he struggle with no longer being a real human according to the ending thoughts of this book.

[Leo · Rating 1 out of 5]

read like 100 pages, book is crap, never finished

[Brian Gaston · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful book that was enjoyable to read.

[Will Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of potential!

[Bookman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fairly entertaining and was a pretty fast read. I was engaged by the story, even though it wasn't anything to write home about.

My one problem with this book is the sense of scale. In the book there is a war between worlds, but the battles just have a handful of ships. At one point the leader of one of the factions was upset at losing 282 soldiers in a battle, saying the war was going poorly. I don't want to make light of loss of life, but in a war between planets that have millions of people on them it seemed like losing 282 soldiers wouldn't be such a devastating loss.

Overall I enjoyed the book, I would probably give it 3.5 stars if I could.

[Alchris M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the book was exciting. Mackay is such a great writer with a good command of descriptive language—which I suppose is his forte. As they say, however, too much of anything isn't good. In the case of this book, the author overused his strength in writing, like a model flaunting too much of his skin...

I'm giving Mackay three stars for this work though. He created believable characters who, unfortunately, happen to live boring lives in an exciting world. Whatever I mean by that, I guess you have to find out by yourself.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fast read. I found the characters a bit thin but the settings are presented in great detail. Entertaining but I'm not yet rushing to seek out the writer's other books.

[Thomas Beebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off kind of slow but about 1/3 of the way into it the protagonist undergoes a major change and the story really takes off from there.