Title: Species
Subtitle: A sci-fi medical thriller of riveting suspense and intrigue
Author: Johan Fundin
Publisher: Asioni Press
ISBN: B08C22XKC4
Pages: 366
Genre: Fiction / Thriller / Science Fiction
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
Hollywood Book Reviews
Author Johan Fundin’s Species is a wild ride through ages past, present, and potentially, future. Potentially is the qualifier because once you get to the end of the novel there may be some doubt in your mind as to whether or not a future worth being part of is actually out there. That will depend on your capacity for courage, inquisitiveness, and particularly resilience. You’ll need all three in spades if you’re up for the world this novelist’s chronicle has prepared for you.
Think of this tome as a rich, literary stew whose ingredients are made up of Michael Crichton scientific exploration, Robert Ludlum geopolitical intrigue, H. G. Welles primordial inhabitants, Pierre Boulle’s tribal apes, and even a nod to Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong. There are echoes of each of those authors work in this book, yet Fundin has found a way to give his narrative a surprising feeling of originality.
The basic plot is this. Suppose it were possible today to create what could be called neo-Neanderthals. That’s right, basically Neanderthals cloned to live and work among today’s human race. Then, take that a step or two further. Suppose it were possible to create actual Neanderthals today. Neanderthals just like they existed over forty thousand years ago. Do you think they’d like being here? Do you think they might hold some grudges against having been eliminated as a species unto themselves? Do you think they’d conduct themselves as cooperatively as humans do today? The answers to those questions, plus the scientific and moral queries surrounding petri dish life creation come raging forth in Fundin’s story.
In addition to his engaging premise, the author peoples his pages with intriguing characters. There’s a World War II hero with one arm that also happens to be an assassin. There’s a paleontologist who bounces from one calamity to the next like the put-upon Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. There’s a beautiful nurse who finds out more than she should and is tracked by a murderous stalker from one chapter to the next. Oh, yes. There’s also a gorgeously incestuous villain who plays havoc with science and business and morality. She makes Ian Fleming’s James Bond bad guys such as Auric Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Ernst Blofeld look like mere pikers.
Stylistically, people, places, and things pop up frequently out of sequence in this tale, but the author always circles back to set events in proper perspective. He keeps the pace moving forward steadily until nearing the end when he really kicks things into high gear. Obviously, a willing suspension of disbelief is appropriate if one is going to thoroughly engage with this novel. Should you have that ability, chances are you’ll be glad you peered into the microscope at this adrenalin rousing and intellectually involving Species.