Simon Pulse
November 07, 2017
412 pages
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Catarina Agatta is a hacker. She can cripple mainframes and crash through firewalls, but that’s not what makes her special. In Cat’s world, people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, allowing them to change their bodies in any way they want. And Cat happens to be a gene-hacking genius.
That’s no surprise, since Cat’s father is Dr. Lachlan Agatta, a legendary geneticist who may be the last hope for defeating a plague that has brought humanity to the brink of extinction. But during the outbreak, Lachlan was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called Cartaxus, leaving Cat to survive the last two years on her own.
When a Cartaxus soldier, Cole, arrives with news that her father has been killed, Cat’s instincts tell her it’s just another Cartaxus lie. But Cole also brings a message: before Lachlan died, he managed to create a vaccine, and Cole needs Cat’s help to release it and save the human race.
Now Cat must decide who she can trust: The soldier with secrets of his own? The father who made her promise to hide from Cartaxus at all costs? In a world where nature itself can be rewritten, how much can she even trust herself?
It has been a long, long time since i was so wonderfully, pleasantly surprised by a book as I was with This Mortal Coil. When I first saw the book cover online it immediately drew me to it (and I like it even more now, knowing what it represents). For whatever reason, I wasn't sure I wanted to read it, though . . . I have absolutely no idea why now.
Emily Suvada's debut novel gives readers one of the creepiest, most unsettling portraits of a near future dystopia. Maybe one of the easiest to imagine actually happening, too.
The way that people can use apps to modify their bodies, to heal injuries, to treat and defeat illnesses is definitely very science fiction, but it's also presented in such a way that you can believe it - and understand both the how and the why. I thoroughly enjoyed the mix of coding and science in This Mortal Coil, it elevated what could have been this inconceivable, implausible future and made it something real.
I loved Catarina's character, from what she had to do, alone in the cabin for so long, to survive the outbreak to why she was limited in the apps she could run and what it meant for her, her to coding abilities and her relationships. Through her we learn a lot about Hydra, about how people can modify themselves with code and apps, about Cartaxus and who now is in charge of society. We also get some fantastic questions and things to try to unravel.
Just when things seemed to be concluding, something huge and significant would be revealed that was both startling and surprising and something you couldn't believe you didn't see coming. It was all brilliant
As Amie Kaufman, co-author of Illuminae and the Starbound Series said, "This Mortal Coil redefines 'unputdownable.' A thrilling, exhilarating read that's crackling with intelligence. Compelling characters and and incredible twists come together perfectly—I loved this book. This is brilliant science fiction.."
This is what I want from a scifi, dystopian, near future read. This. This Mortal Coil was a fantastic debut and I am very, very much looking forward to Book 2!
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