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John Simon #3
Common Source
Master Detective John Simon and his android partner Lucas George have been transferred to Dog Watch, the night shift, when reports come in of androids gone wild—engaging in behavior that seems to violate their programming and disobeys their owner’s commands. After several incidents, as the media picks up and begins sensationalizing the story, Lucas is worried all his hard work to be accepted will be undone by this new crisis, while Simon finds himself attracted to one of the local reporters. As they investigate, they uncover evidence of deliberate sabotage conducted via a common source—deliberately introduced nanoparticles designed to rewrite programming and modify behavior. Then Lucas’ Maker, Dr. Livia Connelly, is kidnapped and her assistant killed, and suddenly the case takes on new urgency. As Simon enlists the help of reporter Holly Sanders, with whom he has been flirting, her stories lead the public and some in the KCPD to distrust androids, including Lucas. When Lucas goes rogue, Simon tries to find him and bring him back in the fold while both continue investigating a case that is spreading throughout the Metro and involving other departments outside the KCPD. Can they find a way to work together to find the person responsible before it’s too late? Book 3 in the page-turning series that combines near-future science fiction and procedural thriller and combines the gritty realism of Michael Connelly’s Bosch, the humor and action of Lethal Weapon, and the science fiction tradition of Isaac Asimov’s City of Steel, COMMON SOURCE hails from the editor of the international bestselling phenomenon The Martian by Andy Weir, and the national bestselling author of tales including official entries in The X-Files, Predator, and the Joe Ledger thrillers.
455 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 23, 2020
2 people are currently reading
5 people want to read
About the author
Bryan Thomas Schmidt
52 books168 followersBryan Thomas Schmidt is a national bestselling author and Hugo nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His fourth novel, Simon Says is a page-turning near future thriller. His debut novel, The Worker Prince received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases for 2011. His children’s books, 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Books For Kids and Abraham Lincoln: Dinosaur Hunter- Land Of Legends appeared from Delabarre Publishing in 2012. His short stories have appeared in Tales of The Talisman, Straight Outta Tombstone, The X-Files: Secret Agendas, Predator: If It Bleeds, Decision Points and many more.
He edited the anthologies Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 for Flying Pen Press, Beyond The Sun for Fairwood Press, Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera For a New Age for Every Day, Shattered Shields with coeditor Jennifer Brozek (Baen, 2014), Mission: Tomorrow (Baen, 2015), Galactic Games (Baen, 2016), Decision Points (WordFire, 2016), Little Green Men--Attack! with Robin Wayne Bailey (Baen, 2017), Monster Hunter Files with Larry Correia (Baen, 2017), Joe Ledger: Unstoppable with Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin's Griffin, 2017), Predator: If It Bleeds and Infinite Stars And Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers both for Titan Books, 2017 and 2019.
As editor, he has edited books for Grail Quest Books, Wordfire Press, Delabarre Publishing and authors including Andy Weir's The Martian which hit number 6 on the New York Times Bestsellers list in 2014, Alan Dean Foster, Mike Resnick, Frank Herbert, Todd McCaffrey, Tracy Hickman, Angie Fox, Leon C. Metz , Ellen C. Maze, David Mark Brown, and more.
He’s also the author of the bestselling nonfiction book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction.
Bryan can be found online at Facebook, on Twitter as @BryanThomasS and @sffwrtcht and via his website.
He edited the anthologies Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 for Flying Pen Press, Beyond The Sun for Fairwood Press, Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera For a New Age for Every Day, Shattered Shields with coeditor Jennifer Brozek (Baen, 2014), Mission: Tomorrow (Baen, 2015), Galactic Games (Baen, 2016), Decision Points (WordFire, 2016), Little Green Men--Attack! with Robin Wayne Bailey (Baen, 2017), Monster Hunter Files with Larry Correia (Baen, 2017), Joe Ledger: Unstoppable with Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin's Griffin, 2017), Predator: If It Bleeds and Infinite Stars And Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers both for Titan Books, 2017 and 2019.
As editor, he has edited books for Grail Quest Books, Wordfire Press, Delabarre Publishing and authors including Andy Weir's The Martian which hit number 6 on the New York Times Bestsellers list in 2014, Alan Dean Foster, Mike Resnick, Frank Herbert, Todd McCaffrey, Tracy Hickman, Angie Fox, Leon C. Metz , Ellen C. Maze, David Mark Brown, and more.
He’s also the author of the bestselling nonfiction book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction.
Bryan can be found online at Facebook, on Twitter as @BryanThomasS and @sffwrtcht and via his website.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 18, 2020
The third book in Bryan Thomas Schmidt's near-future-sf John Simon Thrillers series ratchets the intensity down a notch or two from the second book (in which home-grown terrorists killed a lot of people and rained destruction down on a portion of Kansas City), and that's a good thing: both the characters and the reader needed a breather. Well, a breather of sorts. This is a thriller series, after al, so there will be action sequences and a death toll in pretty much every book. But the stakes this time are highly personal for Simon's android partner Lucas George, and so there's a lot more character development for Lucas than there has been in the previous two books.
For action fans, there are foot- and car-chases, a couple of gun battles and some explosions.
For readers who like their action series to have arcs, depth, and character development: there's an unlikely romance for Simon, a search for identity for Lucas, small reminders of the events of the previous two books, and some very topical discussions: the role of news media in the way events play out, what it means to be sentient and have rights, the continued prevalence of prejudice and stereotypes in our society, and the role entitlement plays in the way people behave.
It's an excellent addition to an already great series, moving the characters forward without sacrificing the action, and the humor, that made the first two books stand out.
For action fans, there are foot- and car-chases, a couple of gun battles and some explosions.
For readers who like their action series to have arcs, depth, and character development: there's an unlikely romance for Simon, a search for identity for Lucas, small reminders of the events of the previous two books, and some very topical discussions: the role of news media in the way events play out, what it means to be sentient and have rights, the continued prevalence of prejudice and stereotypes in our society, and the role entitlement plays in the way people behave.
It's an excellent addition to an already great series, moving the characters forward without sacrificing the action, and the humor, that made the first two books stand out.
August 19, 2020
“Common Source” by Bryan Thomas Schmidt
This book is a police procedural in a Sci-Fi near-future setting, where androids are just starting to be introduced to the general public. Sort of a down-to-earth remake of Asimov’s “I, Robot” Series. It’s a good plotline, with plenty of tension and just enough tech talk to keep us in the picture.
However, the story keeps getting interrupted by intrusive writing elements. The worst is an annoying habit of introducing each character, even the incidental ones, with a formulaic non-sentence of physical and personality description:
“Basketball-player tall, thin, with a thinning gray mop atop his head, DeMarco with well-toned arms and shoulders that made his suit jacket fit awkwardly, almost like it was a size too large.”
There are other specific blocks of extraneous material , all of them too lengthy, getting in the way of the action: “description of setting,” “witty repartee between buddies,” “interdepartmental wrangling,” etcetera. The worst example is when the investigation (and the whole storyline) is side-tracked by the introduction of a task force, with descriptions of everyone and endless nattering, infighting, and useless political wrangling.
One saving grace is the realistic and humorous relationship Simon has with his teenage daughter, culminating in the great and original final scene of the book. The personal connection does a great deal to allow the reader to connect with the character of the android, making him more human. This resonates with the theme of the book, and brings the reader into the story as well.
A comment I find myself making too often; this is a great book in search of an editor.
This book was first reviewed on Reedsy Discovery
This book is a police procedural in a Sci-Fi near-future setting, where androids are just starting to be introduced to the general public. Sort of a down-to-earth remake of Asimov’s “I, Robot” Series. It’s a good plotline, with plenty of tension and just enough tech talk to keep us in the picture.
However, the story keeps getting interrupted by intrusive writing elements. The worst is an annoying habit of introducing each character, even the incidental ones, with a formulaic non-sentence of physical and personality description:
“Basketball-player tall, thin, with a thinning gray mop atop his head, DeMarco with well-toned arms and shoulders that made his suit jacket fit awkwardly, almost like it was a size too large.”
There are other specific blocks of extraneous material , all of them too lengthy, getting in the way of the action: “description of setting,” “witty repartee between buddies,” “interdepartmental wrangling,” etcetera. The worst example is when the investigation (and the whole storyline) is side-tracked by the introduction of a task force, with descriptions of everyone and endless nattering, infighting, and useless political wrangling.
One saving grace is the realistic and humorous relationship Simon has with his teenage daughter, culminating in the great and original final scene of the book. The personal connection does a great deal to allow the reader to connect with the character of the android, making him more human. This resonates with the theme of the book, and brings the reader into the story as well.
A comment I find myself making too often; this is a great book in search of an editor.
This book was first reviewed on Reedsy Discovery
July 2, 2020
Detective John Simon and his android partner Lucas George are back. Something is causing androids to cause property damage, and worse. What was the cause? Simon and his partner are assigned to the first case and follow it, on the logic that it takes an android to understand another android gone amuck. As instances of aberrant android behavior multiply and worsen they follow the clues, with the help of Lucas’ maker, Dr. Livia Connolly. Then Dr. Connolly disappears and I was disappointed, at first, that the clues led so obviously to the guy who abducted her and was causing the androids to go nuts.
But this was not a whodunit. This was a “how catch ‘em.” The mystery, and the dance between this villain, the cops, the press, and the entire android community was a thrill-a-minute adventure. And it gets complicated when John Simon gets interested in an attractive woman for the first time in a long while. (His android partner tries to help Simon with a litany of pick-up lines from movies he has helpfully watched, and it’s hilarious.)
Plus the villain is possibly the nastiest misogynist I’ve had the misfortune to meet in literature, written with the author’s clear understanding of what drives some of these creeps, and it’s wonderful when the bad guy gets his comeuppance. I won’t give away the ending for worlds.
And a fourth John Simon book is coming out this October! Huzzah!
But this was not a whodunit. This was a “how catch ‘em.” The mystery, and the dance between this villain, the cops, the press, and the entire android community was a thrill-a-minute adventure. And it gets complicated when John Simon gets interested in an attractive woman for the first time in a long while. (His android partner tries to help Simon with a litany of pick-up lines from movies he has helpfully watched, and it’s hilarious.)
Plus the villain is possibly the nastiest misogynist I’ve had the misfortune to meet in literature, written with the author’s clear understanding of what drives some of these creeps, and it’s wonderful when the bad guy gets his comeuppance. I won’t give away the ending for worlds.
And a fourth John Simon book is coming out this October! Huzzah!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews