Elysium

Extinction #3

by Gilbert Reid

Volume 7 in the Adventures of V series The Boy - an incarnation of the Infinite Force of Evil - and his True Believer zombie-bats sweep eastward towards Elysium City, the Cosmos Empire's capital, a Domed City built over the flooded ruins of Manhattan, and the last bastion of humanity's earthly rule. Determined to rescue the human species from annihilation, and from the Boy's Cult of Death, V and her tiny crew - Miranda, Caliban, Claire, Demi Pfeiffer, and Robyn - race to Elysium to defend it from the Boy and his fanatical true believer zombie-bats.But ruin has already arrived. The Boy has seized control of the World Mind. The massive ethereal dome protecting the Domed City begins to collapse.Electricity fails. All the machines go crazy. Human minds, linked to the World Mind, go mad, explode, or become zombies.Winged zombie-bats sweep into the city, followed by gigantic super tornadoes, hail storms, and dust storms. Murderous mutant ghouls rise from the sewers.The giant recycling system that turns waste into food - steaks and hamburgers and broccoli and chocolate eclairs - and consumer goods, backs up, explodes, and sprays out a mile-high spurt of homogenized, sterilized human waste. In a parody of the Rapture, the dead in the steamy Burbs rise from their graves, and go on a rampage, massacring the living. Out in the Burbs, a bearded waster, a failed ecological crusader, inadvertently releases a super-powerful lethal version of the Bubonic plague.It spreads from the Burbs into Cosmos Elysium. Panic is everywhere. V and her team engage in mortal combat on multiple levels, above ground, and below ground, with the Boy's evil forces. Taking command of the World Mind, and taking command of people's minds, the Boy creates a labyrinth, a surreal, ever-shifting matrix, forcing V and others into a phantasmagoria of horror and hallucination. Reality dissolves. Time warps into a multitude of shapes. The World Mind, now subverted, begins to consume everything, reducing everything onto itself - all that is solid melts into air - leading the world towards a catastrophic final entropy where every molecule is equal to every other molecule, and the planet will be universal homogenized mush. Meanwhile, the spirit of the World Mind, trying to escape from its cyber prison, incarnates itself, creating a body, becoming a beautiful child of innocence no apparent sex, but a capricious child - and still all-powerful. As the world dissolves, as the machines revolt, as minds are commandeered by alien forces, even the mighty Cosmos are brought to their knees.Humanity faces extinction. Only a few will survive. Or will they?To save the human race and our universe, V must seize control of the World Mind - and capture the Mind Child - and confront the Boy and vanquish him.Is it too late for humanity? Has the Apocalypse come, or the Rapture?Is this the end of the human adventure, the end of the Anthropocene?

780 pages, Paperback

Published December 24, 2020

About the author

Gwendoline Clermont writes romantic fiction based on her own experiences. Her "Emily in Paris" lifestyle in Paris and Rome and New York and Boston and her adventures in Senegal and on Mediterranean islands give her lots of material. Gwendoline is no dummy - she is a genius hacker and mathematician and has a taste for espionage, cyber war and perilous missions - and she is master or mistress of her own destiny. Her writing is sensual and provocative, and often very intimate, while being sophisticated, suspenseful, and emotionally charged. In Gwendoline's pursuit of erotic romance, adventure, and love, desire knows no limits.•

Reviews

[Maria Karam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Next level fiction, mingling with so much reality that it will open up a glimpse into a future that the world is seemingly heading towards in our current state. It is not pretty, but it certainly is entertaining, well written, and full of even more exciting adventures of V and her familiars!