I, Synthorg: Synthorg Marines book 1

by A.J. Blakemont

Born into Slavery. Destined to Lead.

War is sweet to those who’ve never tasted it. RGS-358—aka Reggs—is a synthetic marine whose entire company is thrust into the hell of an impossible mission. His master decreed it.

But what are the lives of artificial soldiers compared to a galactic dynasty?

The longstanding Venatici Empire has become riddled with aristocratic strife. Forces are rising beyond its shrinking borders, threatening its very foundations.

But what can one man do—one slave do?

Reggs will embark upon a path from which there is no turning back. Far from the Empire he will have to choose between loyalty to his brethren—and the truth.

262 pages, Paperback

Published November 27, 2018

About the author

A. J. Blakemont is a novelist and essayist interested in speculative and gothic fiction. He is also passionate about music, history and its mysteries. He grew up in Paris where he studied literature. He lives near London and he is a member of the Society of Authors.

Reviews

[Jay Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice series

This book has an intriguing storyline as well as interesting characters. Follow the story of a synthetic slaves journey to freedom

[Andrew Fear · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book begins with a cliche and ends with a small rebel fleet defeating a giant ship of an evil empire (hmmm where I have seen that before?). This is a curious piece. It is pretty well written, though there is the odd repeated phrase which I'd put down to writing rather than characterisation and the reference at one point to destroyed zombie soldiers as "dead meat" seems unfortunate. Sadly, there is little attempt to show how the synthorgs are different from humans and indeed why they need to come in two sexes (or even one come to think of it). This insouciance does allow a rather tedious and all too human love to bloom for two of them. In the same way the evil master race don't really seem mentally very different from humans (they have Roman veneer but it is a veneer) and if, as I think it did, the blurb stated this book is meant to be an exploration of different sentient mental states, I fear it fails quite badly. The battle scenes are good, but this is a world seemingly with very little in the way of anti-hacking software as our hero enters and wrecks his enemies' programmes with gay abandon. He even trivially overrides safety software implanted in himself. The evil empire needs some new programmers! However, his most deadly weapon is the cliche laden sentence with which he effortlessly takes down various of his more interesting opponents towards the end of the book in a most implausible way. It was a harmless end of the day read, but I won't be coming back for more.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished it, but there is a distance between the action in the book and the telling of it. Nice story, but I couldn't get over the people who supposedly died and came back again. Too much "luck"...