ISLAND 731 – The Legacy of WWII’s Imperial Japanese R&D Program Lives On – Available Now!
Island 731 is, without a doubt, one of my darker novels, and given the subject matter how could it not be? Japan’s R&D department, dubbed Unit 731, carried out human experiments on a scale that dwarfed Nazi programs running at the same time. But that’s just the beginning. It’s what became of their evil-inspired research and scientists that is hard to accept.
Summary:
Mark Hawkins, former park ranger and expert tracker, is out of his element, working on board the Magellan, a research vessel studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Surrounded by thirty miles of refuse, a series of strange malfunctions plague the ship’s high tech systems while a raging storm batters the craft and its crew.
When the storm fades and the sun rises, the beaten crew awakens to find themselves anchored in the protective cove of a tropical island…and no one knows how they got there. Even worse, the ship has been sabotaged, two crewman are dead and a third is missing. Hawkins spots signs of the missing man on shore and leads a small team to bring him back. But they quickly discover evidence of a brutal history left behind by the island’s former occupants: Unit 731, Japan’s ruthless World War II human experimentation program. Mass graves and military fortifications dot the island, along with a decades-old laboratory housing the remains of hideous experiments.
As crew members start to disappear, Hawkins realizes that they are not alone. In fact, they were brought to this strange and horrible island. The crew is taken one-by-one and while Hawkins fights to save his friends, he learns the horrible truth: Island 731 was never decommissioned, and the person taking his crewmates might not be a person at all–not anymore.
Praise:
“Robinson (Secondworld) puts his distinctive mark on Michael Crichton territory with this terrifying present-day riff on The Island of Dr. Moreau. Action and scientific explanation are appropriately proportioned, making this one of the best Jurassic Park successors.” — Publisher’s Weekly – Starred Review
“Take a traditional haunted-house tale and throw in a little Island of Dr. Moreau and a touch of Clash of the Titans, and you wind up with this scary and grotesque novel. Robinson, a skilled blender of the thriller and horror genres, has another winner on his hands.” –Booklist
“[Island 731's] premise is reminiscent of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, but the author adds a World War II back story…vivisection, genetic engineering, Black Ops, animal husbandry and mayhem. This is the stuff that comic books, video games and successful genre franchises are made of.” – Kirkus Reviews
Where to buy:
Although the book is available at all online retailers, the quickest way to get your hardcover copy is to run over to B&N and pick one up.
A History Lesson
Unit 731 was the research and development department whose sole focus was the creation and implementation of biological and chemical weapons. They performed human experimentation on a massive scale, creating vast facilities where Chinese villagers, American POWs and Pacific Islanders would be subjected to the worst imaginable tortures, including limb replacements (removing your arm and attaching someone else’s), rapid freezing and thawing, dissections and exposure to biological and chemical agents through traditional methods, but also by being covered with fleas or ticks that would feast on your blood and pass on the infection. They even performed vivisections on pregnant women. If you’re not sure what a vivisection is, it’s basically a dissection, but you’re kept awake and lucid, watching until your death. They performed these experiments on a grand scale, sometimes infecting entire villages with the plague (the black death variety) by dropping flea bombs, which would have eventually made their way to U.S. soil, had the war not ended.
And while all of that is sick and disgusting, we’re removed from it, by time and geography. After all, this is who the U.S. was fighting to defeat, right? The scientists who performed these screwed up procedures and slaughtered women, children, men and POWS by the thousands, were tried for their war crimes, right?
Wrong. The Japanese scientists of Unit 731, like the best minds of Nazi Germany, were pardoned and recruited by the United States. All of their screwed up research went straight to the U.S.A., benefiting you and me and the fine folks who are developing our own biological and chemical weapons. Even worse, the U.S. actually covered up the war crimes. Doesn’t sit well, does it? ISLAND 731 explores how that research has evolved in the 70 years since World War II ended.
For more information about Unit 731, check out these videos on Youtube, but fair warning: the information and images are extremely graphic.
JEREMY ROBINSON is the author of more than thirty novels and novellas translated into ten languages, including the wildly popular new novel, SECONDWORLD, as well as PULSE, INSTINCT, THRESHOLD and RAGNAROK, the first four books in his exciting Jack Sigler series. Visit his website at: www.jeremyrobinsononline.com
