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Asteroid Fever
It's 2037 now, a stormy, surrealistic, new world, ruled by industrialists. In 2020, the smallest things changed a world, now split between eaters of gengineered food made by frementators, peppered daily with vaccinations, and sippers of SIPs, synthetic insect blood laced with probiotics from Mars. Immortality and instant riches are within reach so long as one doesn't get killed along the way. Fake News dreamed up by Prezz Gredloy, broadcast by Dreaming News, sends a space fleet without space ships to fabulous low Earth orbiting Elevator City. Unable to win any battles on Earth, the plan is to conquer imaginary aliens and take control of Free Space. The only ones standing in Prezz's way, are a small group of ordinary working people, and the Pleiadeans working for the Pleiades Hydrosphere Cleaning Service, and both groups are only interested in furthering their own goals. It's only when their objectives become objects of Prezz Gredloy's greed do they band together. But is it too little, too late, to stop the Remaining Eastern States from taking a bite out of Free Space. A surrealistic science fiction story where nothing is what it appears to be.
239 pages, Paperback
Published June 8, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 12, 2019
Do you enjoy Sips, synthetic insect plasma? Or gengineered food laced with nanobots? Do Martian microbes maintain your body and give you superhuman abilities? This ecofiction sci-fi mystery is filled with characters obsessed about food, who live in a zany world of whirlys (vehicles), off-world ships, and messianic messages from a dying genius who wants to see humans thrive in space. But who will rule space, and control the asteroid mining that provides Earth with a unique source energy? Let the battle commence.
Yes, Asteroid Fever has it all. From the off I imagined a Futurama-esque universe where the Dreaming News networks makes fake news look like the BBC. This book is allegorical, in a Philip K Dick kind of way, of our current ecological and socioeconomic situation, drawn with a fresh imagination and a unique, foodie-driven perspective. Well worth the read for the cutting humour alone.
Yes, Asteroid Fever has it all. From the off I imagined a Futurama-esque universe where the Dreaming News networks makes fake news look like the BBC. This book is allegorical, in a Philip K Dick kind of way, of our current ecological and socioeconomic situation, drawn with a fresh imagination and a unique, foodie-driven perspective. Well worth the read for the cutting humour alone.
July 31, 2022
Robert Zwilling has a unique and interesting take on our immediate future, socio-economic world of 2037. Although it seems much more futuristic than realistically plausible; with nanobot food, Martian microbes and a new clean energy derived from Asteroid dust. But things are unravelling; The Sight Shifters are investigating an ‘accidental’ drowning at the SIPS (synthetic insect plasma) factory, an asteroid miner accidentally sees that things are not as they seem on his mining station and Greenie, the product of a 3D printer, takes on Prezz Gredloy to be the ruler of ‘free space’. Many characters and storylines converge in this madcap, allegory on ‘Free Space’ and all the chaos implied. Fresh, imaginative and fun! Well worth a read!
August 18, 2019
Asteroid Fever is written by Robert Zwilling. Robert takes an interesting point of view on the future of our society, while injecting humor and sarcasm throughout. The story has many characters that play roles in the story, sometimes ten or more, if you include AI’s and brains in canisters.
During the first part of the story, there are several different groups of people and dogs, yes dogs, that are going about their lives and business and seem completely unrelated. Little by little throughout the story, their lives start to become entwined, some by chance, others due to their involvement with a murder investigation. Others are pulled in due to a wacky plan by a media mogul, and soon to be self-proclaimed president of Free Space.
All the individual groups were interesting among themselves. A pair that was using electro-mechanical controls that made dogs dance and gave them limited ability of speech. Another group that was involved in the manufacturing and distribution of “Sips”, insect plasma fortified with Martian microbes that helped the body fight off diseases and bacteria, as well as caused some other enhancements. Prezz was a media mogul that wanted to take over free space. He sees this as the wild, wild west, as he felt that Earth was running out of opportunities to take advantage of people.
Yet another set of folks were investigating a murder at a Sips factory, Sight Shifters. People that have the ability to see the reflection of things that happened in the past in inanimate objects. Merackle, the inventor of a special foam that makes it fast and inexpensive to build large structures in space is also another key figure. He’s bent on getting people into Free Space as well.
Once a miner is mistakenly imbued with state-of-the-art implants, he sees that all on his mining station is not what it seems. The media hype around the stations being attacked by aliens doesn’t appear to be as it’s described on Prezz’s news media feeds.
Once all the groups become involved with each other and realize Prezz’s diabolical plans, they team up to stop him, including recruiting one of the “Dreaming News” employees. Just as Prezz is moving all his employees to Elevator City to start his takeover of Free Space, the group throws some plans in action to try and foil his efforts.
During the first few chapters of the book, I noticed myself wondering what all these different groups had in common, and how they fit into any story, as true antagonist wasn’t apparent until later. There were two, Prezz, as well as the perpetrator of the murder for which there was the investigation mentioned earlier.
There came a point where many of the talents of the characters came together as the groups began to interact with each other and form an alliance of sorts. While there were some factions that seemed to be pursing the group, I did feel that this large group of people seemed to be moving around mostly unhindered. The group never directly confronted the two antagonists, so there were only some people in the group that others had identified as problems that needed fixing.
I found the view of society unique. While we have many advances in science, there were still issues, bigotry and egos that we’re all familiar in our society today. The story also doesn’t get bogged down explaining technology, it just shows people using it.
I also noticed that it wasn’t a “page turner” in the normal sense, as many of the chapters did not end with a cliff hanger. However, I still wanted to read more, to see what was going to happen with this, that or the other thing. There was so many different angles, that there were always unanswered questions in my mind.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and would look forward to other books written by Robert. I’ll be on the lookout!
During the first part of the story, there are several different groups of people and dogs, yes dogs, that are going about their lives and business and seem completely unrelated. Little by little throughout the story, their lives start to become entwined, some by chance, others due to their involvement with a murder investigation. Others are pulled in due to a wacky plan by a media mogul, and soon to be self-proclaimed president of Free Space.
All the individual groups were interesting among themselves. A pair that was using electro-mechanical controls that made dogs dance and gave them limited ability of speech. Another group that was involved in the manufacturing and distribution of “Sips”, insect plasma fortified with Martian microbes that helped the body fight off diseases and bacteria, as well as caused some other enhancements. Prezz was a media mogul that wanted to take over free space. He sees this as the wild, wild west, as he felt that Earth was running out of opportunities to take advantage of people.
Yet another set of folks were investigating a murder at a Sips factory, Sight Shifters. People that have the ability to see the reflection of things that happened in the past in inanimate objects. Merackle, the inventor of a special foam that makes it fast and inexpensive to build large structures in space is also another key figure. He’s bent on getting people into Free Space as well.
Once a miner is mistakenly imbued with state-of-the-art implants, he sees that all on his mining station is not what it seems. The media hype around the stations being attacked by aliens doesn’t appear to be as it’s described on Prezz’s news media feeds.
Once all the groups become involved with each other and realize Prezz’s diabolical plans, they team up to stop him, including recruiting one of the “Dreaming News” employees. Just as Prezz is moving all his employees to Elevator City to start his takeover of Free Space, the group throws some plans in action to try and foil his efforts.
During the first few chapters of the book, I noticed myself wondering what all these different groups had in common, and how they fit into any story, as true antagonist wasn’t apparent until later. There were two, Prezz, as well as the perpetrator of the murder for which there was the investigation mentioned earlier.
There came a point where many of the talents of the characters came together as the groups began to interact with each other and form an alliance of sorts. While there were some factions that seemed to be pursing the group, I did feel that this large group of people seemed to be moving around mostly unhindered. The group never directly confronted the two antagonists, so there were only some people in the group that others had identified as problems that needed fixing.
I found the view of society unique. While we have many advances in science, there were still issues, bigotry and egos that we’re all familiar in our society today. The story also doesn’t get bogged down explaining technology, it just shows people using it.
I also noticed that it wasn’t a “page turner” in the normal sense, as many of the chapters did not end with a cliff hanger. However, I still wanted to read more, to see what was going to happen with this, that or the other thing. There was so many different angles, that there were always unanswered questions in my mind.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and would look forward to other books written by Robert. I’ll be on the lookout!
July 27, 2019
Do you enjoy Sips, synthetic insect plasma? Or gengineered food laced with nanobots? Do Martian microbes maintain your body and give you superhuman abilities? This ecofiction sci-fi mystery is filled with characters obsessed about food, who live in a zany world of whirlys (vehicles), off-world ships, and messianic messages from a dying genius who wants to see humans thrive in space. But who will rule space, and control the asteroid mining that provides Earth with a unique source energy? Let the battle commence.
Yes, Asteroid Fever has it all. From the off I imagined a Futurama-esque universe where the Dreaming News networks makes fake news look like the BBC. This book is allegorical, in a Philip K Dick kind of way, of our current ecological and socioeconomic situation, drawn with a fresh imagination and a unique, foodie-driven perspective. Well worth the read for the cutting humour alone.
Yes, Asteroid Fever has it all. From the off I imagined a Futurama-esque universe where the Dreaming News networks makes fake news look like the BBC. This book is allegorical, in a Philip K Dick kind of way, of our current ecological and socioeconomic situation, drawn with a fresh imagination and a unique, foodie-driven perspective. Well worth the read for the cutting humour alone.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews