The Moreau Quartet: Volume One

Moreau #1 & 4

by S. Andrew Swann

The Moreau Quartet Volume 1 is an omnibus of S. Andrew Swann's Forests of the Night and Fearful Symmetries.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Cyberpunk, Mystery

442 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2015

About the author

S. Andrew Swann is the primary pseudonym of Steven Swiniarski, who also writes as S.A. Swiniarski, Steven Krane, and S.A. Swann.

Reviews

[Mike Hambrecht · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written. I’m impressed with the mix of genres. PI meets SciFi. Straight up, it merges the two genres very well. It’s awesome to see this in the authors early work. I look forward to reading much more of his work, to see how it progresses and where it goes from here.

[Adrian Torres · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best pieces of Noir/Biopunk fiction ever written! The first story, Forest of the Night, creates this intriguing Noir Puzzle where you are trying to guess at where the story is going and also engaged by the action and the characters! Fearful Symmetry, while being a fourth part of the series, feels like a good sequel to the first book as it puts the aging tiger against a powerful anti-moreau conspiracy.

I love the fact that Mister Swann wrote a complex relationship between Man and the manmade monstrosities that live in this world, with humanity wanting them clearly gone but having a subset of humans who view them as people and deserve that right while the Moreaus (and to a lesser extent the Franks) are shown to be just as viscous as the men who created them and how they have to adjust to a setting that isn’t full of conflict or how they have to adhere to our Human morals and rules. It is a world where No side is perfect but you understand where one could know their stance on the other.

I was also intrigued that, in his Acknowledgement, the author goes into further detail about the origins of these creatures and how Humanity, like Victor Frankenstein, is the Prometheus who refuses to take responsibility for the fire he has used to create new life while also finding new excuses to hate them.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Im a sucker for SF detective novels and this fits the bill, well at least the first one in the book.Nohar a genetically modified tiger detective in a modern cyberpunkish world fits the bill. I enjoyed the detective parts of this and the action reads as if straight out of a movie which is were the problem comes in by the second book the action becomes the primary focus and not the mystery so my enjoyment of the book declined as the book become an action/adventure as opposed to a film noir type SF book. Still worth the read and love the idea of the Moreaus.

[Dane Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the idea of genetically altered tigers, dogs, rats, and so on. The main character is great. This is actually a couple of stories. I liked the first one better because it wasn't quite so dark, but they were both good because Nohar was such a fun character.

[April]

I've put this one down. There is nothing wrong with it, it just was not capturing my attention and I found myself doing other things rather than read so I'm moving on.