Saturn Returns: Sean Williams

So, you think you are having a bad day? Try this one, wake up in a confined, coffin-like space, you know your name but have no idea who you are, the last thing you remember took place approximately 200 years ago, and did I mention your gender has been changed?

In the forty-third millennium of human history, Imre Bergamasc awakens after two hundred years to the realization that he has been the victim of an elaborate murder plot-a plot, which destroyed the intergalactic transport milieu known as the Continuum. But now that Imre has been reborn, he will stop at nothing to help bring forth the rebirth of the galaxy.

From the edge of the universe, reconstructed by a hive mind known as the Jinc, who are searching for God, Imre begins this tale seeking his past. For in it, lies the key to the galaxies future. Told in a flash back perspective as he travels forward to search for those pieces of his past he can locate, this book is often confusing and yet gripping.

This is a detective mystery, as Imre locates, and re-establishes contact with those he remembers from his mercenary past. Hunted at every turn, hounded by half remembered events, faces, and a host of events, which he seems to have caused since he went into hard storage, this rivals anything by Clive Cussler or John Grisham. Yet it has definite appeal for those hard-core sci-fi fans that want to discuss temporal displacements or single identity-multiple entity philosophy. For in this universe, it is possible to have more than one copy of yourself with whom you can exchange or merge memories and experiences, each moving at different rates of time, be a part of a hive mind whose main essence moves so slow what seems a second may take a year. Or live at a speed in which a year passes in an hour. Time is relative to individual tastes, need and lifestyle choice.

From being the Commander of an elite mercenary unit answering to the defacto rulers of the Galaxy to an on-the-run recovering amnesiac, Imre makes his way across the galaxy looking for answers to who and what he was, to what he will become in the new order. Gathering old comrades Alphin Freer and Helwise McPhedron, with their aid he hopes to find the key to his unanswered questions. Or will they? Imre didn’t part from them on good terms and their own agendas will come to light in the most unexpected of places…

While this is the first in the series, the book does a good enough job of tying up loose ends to read well on its own while leaving those one or two key elements to lead you into the next. Definitely worth the read and for Sean Williams handling difficult plot twists, and beautiful ending, this is well worth 5 stars.

--------------------------------
Publisher: Ace (April 24, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0441014933
ISBN-13: 978-0441014934
Buy the Book