What do you think?
Rate this book
Subsumption: A Sci-Fi Novel to Inspire
Trusting an alien is hard. Figuring out which alien to trust might be impossible.
Marcus Adams was supposed to be a normal college student. Instead, he’s one of the chosen few in an alien-run education track preparing humanity for war. The Federation calls him special — an ideal candidate to help Earth survive the coming conflict with the rival Confederation. Now they’ve selected him for their most secretive program yet: a classified research Cohort that will determine how humanity is “integrated” into the galaxy.
The experiments plunge Marcus into simulated realities so convincing they blur the line between engineered experience and lived memory. Each trial pushes him further — physically, mentally, emotionally. Every choice he makes becomes data. And the Federation insists that data is the only thing standing between Earth and enslavement.
Marcus wants to believe them. His best friend Jordan doesn’t. As the simulations intensify, Marcus’s personal life begins to fracture — his brother, his family’s expectations, the future he thought he controlled slipping through his fingers.
The deeper he goes, the harder it becomes to tell where research ends and manipulation begins.
With the invasion clock ticking down and the truth buried inside the very trials reshaping his mind, Marcus must answer the question no one else can:
Is he humanity’s greatest hope — or the Confederation’s most valuable asset?
Because the power to choose may be the only weapon Earth has left. And everyone wants control of him.
A recursive, metaphysical technothriller for readers who love the psychological intensity of Ender's Game and the cosmic scale of The Three-Body Problem.
Marcus Adams was supposed to be a normal college student. Instead, he’s one of the chosen few in an alien-run education track preparing humanity for war. The Federation calls him special — an ideal candidate to help Earth survive the coming conflict with the rival Confederation. Now they’ve selected him for their most secretive program yet: a classified research Cohort that will determine how humanity is “integrated” into the galaxy.
The experiments plunge Marcus into simulated realities so convincing they blur the line between engineered experience and lived memory. Each trial pushes him further — physically, mentally, emotionally. Every choice he makes becomes data. And the Federation insists that data is the only thing standing between Earth and enslavement.
Marcus wants to believe them. His best friend Jordan doesn’t. As the simulations intensify, Marcus’s personal life begins to fracture — his brother, his family’s expectations, the future he thought he controlled slipping through his fingers.
The deeper he goes, the harder it becomes to tell where research ends and manipulation begins.
With the invasion clock ticking down and the truth buried inside the very trials reshaping his mind, Marcus must answer the question no one else can:
Is he humanity’s greatest hope — or the Confederation’s most valuable asset?
Because the power to choose may be the only weapon Earth has left. And everyone wants control of him.
A recursive, metaphysical technothriller for readers who love the psychological intensity of Ender's Game and the cosmic scale of The Three-Body Problem.
- GenresScience Fiction
619 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 13, 2020
About the author
Luciano W. Pesci
3 books8 followersLuciano is an author, economist, and data scientist. In addition to being a highly loved professor at multiple higher education institutions, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Emperitas. With his wife Nicole, he has 5 boys and loves to hike the mountains of Utah with his lab named Maggie.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 19, 2024
The book started as 4-5 stars and then slowly went down. It was still a page turner for me and I enjoyed reading but I felt like the entire middle of the book did very little to progress the plot along.
I felt like their could have been a strong connection between the sequences and the end state. It also had randomly spicy parts.
SPOILERS:
The fact that Dianna survived is crazy to me if only select and complete humans are supposed to survive. Especially if she’s psycho enough to abort her twins as a way to get revenge.
It also was perplexing how they would have a large plot twist and then reverse it on the last page when Antony is back.
In the end it started strong and had a great idea behind it. But it didn’t deliver upon its promises.
Also the author constantly glazes Utah.
I felt like their could have been a strong connection between the sequences and the end state. It also had randomly spicy parts.
SPOILERS:
The fact that Dianna survived is crazy to me if only select and complete humans are supposed to survive. Especially if she’s psycho enough to abort her twins as a way to get revenge.
It also was perplexing how they would have a large plot twist and then reverse it on the last page when Antony is back.
In the end it started strong and had a great idea behind it. But it didn’t deliver upon its promises.
Also the author constantly glazes Utah.
February 2, 2021
Subsumption by Luciano W. Pesci is an excellent read that is not your typical Sci-fi novel. An excellent mix of genres the author does a marvelous job of hitting all the points that make for not just a good Sci-fi story, but good reading all around.
The world building is fabulous with rich descriptions that make seeing the world of the story very easy and Luciano does it without overloading the reader with details that can cause confusion. The story takes place in the future but the sense of familiarity is so strong the reader will believe it is the near future. This had the effect of my coming away from the story thinking about the world I live in.
The characters are well written imbued with a sense of right and wrong, compassion and greed, both good guys and bad guys. Marcos and his brother Antony (a sign that the author has a thing for Roman history?) are meted out with depth and layers that slowly reveal themselves as the story progresses. The character feel so real I found myself wondering if I would make the same choices as they did or go the other way. Excellent world building, believable characters,believable choices and Mr Pesci creates a story that gives you the feeling of being part of the story.
Subsumption will grab you from the start and keep you easily invested in it's story to the very end. A big book (over 600 pages) that reads much much faster than you would think due to the easy reading and compelling themes.
A very intriguing Sci-fi story that was hard to put down and leaves you wanting more. This is an easy recommendation for fans of the genre, action fans, fans of character studies or just a plain old great story.
The world building is fabulous with rich descriptions that make seeing the world of the story very easy and Luciano does it without overloading the reader with details that can cause confusion. The story takes place in the future but the sense of familiarity is so strong the reader will believe it is the near future. This had the effect of my coming away from the story thinking about the world I live in.
The characters are well written imbued with a sense of right and wrong, compassion and greed, both good guys and bad guys. Marcos and his brother Antony (a sign that the author has a thing for Roman history?) are meted out with depth and layers that slowly reveal themselves as the story progresses. The character feel so real I found myself wondering if I would make the same choices as they did or go the other way. Excellent world building, believable characters,believable choices and Mr Pesci creates a story that gives you the feeling of being part of the story.
Subsumption will grab you from the start and keep you easily invested in it's story to the very end. A big book (over 600 pages) that reads much much faster than you would think due to the easy reading and compelling themes.
A very intriguing Sci-fi story that was hard to put down and leaves you wanting more. This is an easy recommendation for fans of the genre, action fans, fans of character studies or just a plain old great story.
December 21, 2020
Mediocre+
Always knew Brad’s group had an agenda and was lying. Didn’t mind that.
I did mind the author (and editor) wasting my time with irrelevant passages solely trying to prove he’s smarter than me: repeated inclusion of Latin phrases served no purpose, the reference to Federalist #55 did not clarify anything in the plot, the pedantic mention of sunset/twilight and their variations astronomical/civil/et cetera should have never gotten past the first draft.
Won’t be following this tale any further.
Always knew Brad’s group had an agenda and was lying. Didn’t mind that.
I did mind the author (and editor) wasting my time with irrelevant passages solely trying to prove he’s smarter than me: repeated inclusion of Latin phrases served no purpose, the reference to Federalist #55 did not clarify anything in the plot, the pedantic mention of sunset/twilight and their variations astronomical/civil/et cetera should have never gotten past the first draft.
Won’t be following this tale any further.
November 18, 2020
If I were the editor, I would have tons of notes for the author. Some of those notes follow:
-The author has a major crush on Utah, which comes through on nearly every page. Think of everything you know about Utah - it's covered in this book.
-The book is too long for the kind of story it is. The assumptions and allowances the reader has to make for the plot to be reasonable, place the book in the "teen" genre, but the profuse splattering of 80's pop culture references and adult situations seem inconsistent with this. The allowances I mean include the fact that there is no satisfactory explanation why governments and scientists are not at the frontlines of all of this... instead of academia. You'd also expect there to be torrents of people from all over the world fighting to get into the Cohort, especially considering the explicit monetary benefits. Instead, it seems pretty easy to get in and there's no security beating off the masses at the gates to the "Liberty Bell".
-The attempts to add levity via humor were well intentioned, but sort of rolled off me as lack-luster. Nearly all of the humor was lifted from pop-culture and unoriginal. I would have preferred the author to have left humor out and kept more closely to the tradition of science fiction in the book's tone.
-The main protagonist (Marcus) was hard to relate to and not very likeable, at least not compared to other characters in the book (Antony, Monica, Brad, Bill, Jordan). In that sense it was like Harry Potter, where you endure the Harry Potter character to get at the more interesting stories of the other more likeable characters that make more reasonable choices.
***spoiler alert***
at the end of the book when it appeared everyone except Marcus had been killed off, I nearly stopped reading and shelved the book permanently believing the author had killed every likeable character and left only Marcus. That's not a book I want to continue reading.
***end of spoiler***
-It's clear the author knows a lot of little factoids, especially about history and Latin, which is fine, but the constant Latin phrases, obscure history references, and detailed background on uninteresting things like buildings on the University campus, got old pretty fast. Marcus' family has like 20 mantras.
Despite all of this, I enjoyed the book. The author did an exceptional job considering this is his first novel (infinitely better than any novel I've written.) I won't be continuing the series, however.
-The author has a major crush on Utah, which comes through on nearly every page. Think of everything you know about Utah - it's covered in this book.
-The book is too long for the kind of story it is. The assumptions and allowances the reader has to make for the plot to be reasonable, place the book in the "teen" genre, but the profuse splattering of 80's pop culture references and adult situations seem inconsistent with this. The allowances I mean include the fact that there is no satisfactory explanation why governments and scientists are not at the frontlines of all of this... instead of academia. You'd also expect there to be torrents of people from all over the world fighting to get into the Cohort, especially considering the explicit monetary benefits. Instead, it seems pretty easy to get in and there's no security beating off the masses at the gates to the "Liberty Bell".
-The attempts to add levity via humor were well intentioned, but sort of rolled off me as lack-luster. Nearly all of the humor was lifted from pop-culture and unoriginal. I would have preferred the author to have left humor out and kept more closely to the tradition of science fiction in the book's tone.
-The main protagonist (Marcus) was hard to relate to and not very likeable, at least not compared to other characters in the book (Antony, Monica, Brad, Bill, Jordan). In that sense it was like Harry Potter, where you endure the Harry Potter character to get at the more interesting stories of the other more likeable characters that make more reasonable choices.
***spoiler alert***
at the end of the book when it appeared everyone except Marcus had been killed off, I nearly stopped reading and shelved the book permanently believing the author had killed every likeable character and left only Marcus. That's not a book I want to continue reading.
***end of spoiler***
-It's clear the author knows a lot of little factoids, especially about history and Latin, which is fine, but the constant Latin phrases, obscure history references, and detailed background on uninteresting things like buildings on the University campus, got old pretty fast. Marcus' family has like 20 mantras.
Despite all of this, I enjoyed the book. The author did an exceptional job considering this is his first novel (infinitely better than any novel I've written.) I won't be continuing the series, however.
December 30, 2020
My enjoyment of the story was only hampered by my own prejudices. To me it had an impending apocalypse, dystopian feel. I’ve read SciFi since I was old enough to check out such books at the library, and buy my own comic books. I have lately, say in the last decade or so, developed a dislike of apocalypse and dystopian fiction. I realized, a long way through the book, that it was very similar to the actual situation we are living right now.
After reading the author’s notes, I can see that it was intentionally so. I can relate to his “story of how this book came about,” as I have written a couple of books myself. I wish mine had done as well, but that’s another tale. We live in an era when “Endtimes” has become an acceptable concept once again; one which seems to be pushing a good number of people into an apparent wish to help it along. Reading it in this time, on the eve of the new year 2021, I had both a hard time putting it down, and a hard time picking it up again. I loved the philosophy, the math references (I’m terrible at it) and most of all the collected research this story’s apropos quotations must have required.
On the last night I finished reading it, my wife and I watched a movie on Netflix called “Greenland.” No spoilers here, either for the book or the movie, but suffice it to say that last night my already somewhat troubled mind was going in all directions, trying to work out the reality of our lives, and the two differently scripted stories of what might come to us one day. That said, read this book. You won’t find another like it in today’s crop of SciFi novels, and as I said, I would know. I’ve read as many as I could in 68 years of reading. As an English major, with a minor in Education from Syracuse University, I had to read a lot. Books, plays, poetry, texts, you name it. If you enjoy the genre, this one is for you. Again, read the book, don’t just take my word for it.
After reading the author’s notes, I can see that it was intentionally so. I can relate to his “story of how this book came about,” as I have written a couple of books myself. I wish mine had done as well, but that’s another tale. We live in an era when “Endtimes” has become an acceptable concept once again; one which seems to be pushing a good number of people into an apparent wish to help it along. Reading it in this time, on the eve of the new year 2021, I had both a hard time putting it down, and a hard time picking it up again. I loved the philosophy, the math references (I’m terrible at it) and most of all the collected research this story’s apropos quotations must have required.
On the last night I finished reading it, my wife and I watched a movie on Netflix called “Greenland.” No spoilers here, either for the book or the movie, but suffice it to say that last night my already somewhat troubled mind was going in all directions, trying to work out the reality of our lives, and the two differently scripted stories of what might come to us one day. That said, read this book. You won’t find another like it in today’s crop of SciFi novels, and as I said, I would know. I’ve read as many as I could in 68 years of reading. As an English major, with a minor in Education from Syracuse University, I had to read a lot. Books, plays, poetry, texts, you name it. If you enjoy the genre, this one is for you. Again, read the book, don’t just take my word for it.
January 25, 2021
First, let me start by saying you do not have to read Converted and Discloser to follow this book, but I recommend it. They are significant lead-ups and give a good introduction as to what's going on. Reading those first will help you ease into this book smoothly.
From the start, you are sucked in. Pesci has done such a fantastic job with his writing that you feel like you are one of the characters. It is almost like you are sitting in the FACT classroom right along with Marcus and his peers.
The writing style makes you think that Douglas Adams, Ernest Cline, and Blake Crouch had some kind of love child, and it's Luciano Pesci. Incredible!
Pay attention because this book is very descriptive, and you can easily get lost.
If you are a sci-fi fan, then this is a must-read. I am looking forward to what comes next.
From the start, you are sucked in. Pesci has done such a fantastic job with his writing that you feel like you are one of the characters. It is almost like you are sitting in the FACT classroom right along with Marcus and his peers.
The writing style makes you think that Douglas Adams, Ernest Cline, and Blake Crouch had some kind of love child, and it's Luciano Pesci. Incredible!
Pay attention because this book is very descriptive, and you can easily get lost.
If you are a sci-fi fan, then this is a must-read. I am looking forward to what comes next.
December 21, 2020
Most sci-fi books follow the exact same templates. They all draw heavily from major themes of stories we all know well. Subsumption doesn't play by the rules; it tells an original story that grounds you with unique characters you can relate with but expands with human history converging with our present and future. The characters' experiences allow you to explore existentialist questions, but the story enables you to get lost in the mysteries that are presented.
June 12, 2021
Honestly, I didn't love this book, it was rather slow, and it was kind hard to relate to any of the characters. It seemed like there was a lot of scoundrel characters that we're supposed to like, they use drugs and drink alot, but we're supposed to root for them. That didn't click for me. Also, I didn't really feel like the ending was all that great, and didn't buy the angry to not angry transition being that quick and easy. Not really interested in reading follow up installments.
January 1, 2021
I am hooked on this story! Subsumption will suck you in with it's characters and their stories in this sci-fi story. Marcus is a character you can't help but root for even with his flaws. This is a really unique fantasy story about humanity and aliens. I would recommend this story to others and can't wait to read the next book in the series when it comes out.
February 27, 2021
This is a well-written story about first contact with aliens and preparations for surviving an attack by delving into the thought processes of humans. While the first two-thirds of the book successfully describe the alien interactions and personal growth of the main character, the final third of the book is surprisingly harsh and unfulfilling.
June 13, 2023
Sci-fi is normally not my thing, but Subsumption strikes the perfect balance. The storyline is mixed with every day school/friend/family struggles along with thought-provoking questions and scenarios brought through interactions with the aliens and their preparation plans. The main character is relatable and likable. Definitely looking forward to continuing the series!
December 14, 2020
Not worth my time.
I persevered hoping for some twist would make this better. Ultimately, it was a jumble of new age, other religions, crazy tech ideas, and did not add.up to much. I wasted my time.
I persevered hoping for some twist would make this better. Ultimately, it was a jumble of new age, other religions, crazy tech ideas, and did not add.up to much. I wasted my time.
January 24, 2021
I got this thinking that it was a stand alone book and not a series. Imagine my surprise when I got to the end and find it ends abruptly. According to the authors schedule I'm looking at 7 or 8 years until the end. Wasn't that great to begin with and I could care less about finishing.
December 29, 2020
Subsumption brilliantly unified the elements of entertainment, complex concepts, and a convincing perspective of a sci-fi future. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.
August 12, 2021
Struggled to read to the end, I liked the concept but the execution was dull
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews