Today it's also my turn on the BlogTour One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence. It's sci-fi with elements of speculative fiction, time-travel and fantasy.
He is married with four children and lives in Bristol with his family. Before becoming a writer his day job was as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. At one point he was qualified to say 'this isn't rocket science … oh wait, it actually is'.
He is the author of the Broken Empire trilogy (Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns and Emperor of Thorns), the Red Queen’s War trilogy (Prince of Fools, The Liar’s Key and The Wheel of Osheim) and the Book of the Ancestor series (Red Sister, Grey Sister and Holy Sister).
Follow @Mark_Lawrence on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Facebook, on Instagram,
Visit marklawrence.buzz or mark---lawrence.blogspot.com
Buy One Word Kill
About the book
In January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he’s dying. And it isn’t even the strangest thing to happen to him that week.
Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations. But when a new girl, Mia, joins the group and reality becomes weirder than the fantasy world they visit in their weekly games, none of them are prepared for what comes next. A strange—yet curiously familiar man is following Nick, with abilities that just shouldn’t exist. And this man bears a cryptic message: Mia’s in grave danger, though she doesn’t know it yet. She needs Nick’s help—now.
He finds himself in a race against time to unravel an impossible mystery and save the girl. And all that stands in his way is a probably terminal disease, a knife-wielding maniac and the laws of physics. Challenge accepted.
This is the kind of story that makes me want to go back and read it again just to see what else can be read in between the lines. I think there is a whole unexplored layer of psychological and Freudian aspects of the premise I could go into.
I am thinking about Nick and Demus in a convoluted time-space-continuum plot involving Demus as the Id, specifically Nick's Id, and the reasoning behind all actions. Sounds slightly bizarre? Yeh well I am sure Lawrence wants the grey cells to be engaged and go forth and multiply - at the very least to bounce off of each other.
I enjoyed the intro into the story, the author doesn't mince his words and starts the book on the basis of the character not living long enough to enjoy or take part in the story. Nick, a teenage boy is diagnosed with cancer and so begins a tale of friends who play a game of fantasy that is suddenly mixed with reality.
I do think some exposure to Dungeons and Dragons, which was much more popular in certain countries than in others, so it's not a complete leap in the dark for some readers, will give some readers an advantage. (I have actually never come across anyone who played it) The whole concept of emerging yourself in a game at a level that suggests avoidance, denial and coping mechanisms, aside from the whole enjoyment factor, is an interesting topic.
Reality, fiction, memory and perhaps even overactive imaginations make this a complex story an ambitious read.
It's sci-fi with elements of speculative fiction, time-travel and fantasy. It's innovative and deep, if you look closely enough, and it has a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see where Lawrence takes this series in the future, no pun intended.
Buy One Word Kill (Impossible Times #1) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Published by 47North (an imprint of Amazon Publishing) / £19.99 HB / £4.99 PB / e-book £3.98 / Audiobook £20.12 / 1 May 2019. Buy at Amazon com.
Huge thanks for this blog tour support Cheryl x
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