Lanterna Rally

Author: Steve Stanton

Publisher: ECW Press

Published: 2012-12-01

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13: 1770903224

In a post-cyberpunk future, where global economic activity is carried out in a virtual-gaming realm, a new blood-transmitted virus has become a black-market staple due to its temporary rejuvenating effects, forcing infected “Eternals” into tightly knit underground communities where they must hack the V-net for basic food and shelter. In the first book of a series that “revitalizes the cyber-fiction genre with its vivid prose and believable characters” (Library Journal), Zakariah Davis and his wife Mia are among those infected with an alien virus that vastly prolongs life, and their blood has become a black-market staple due to its rejuvenating effects. Their teenage son Rix does not carry the Eternal virus, and Zakariah is consumed by the search for an “activated sample” with which to inoculate him. In book two, Mia is murdered in retribution and the family is overcome by grief. Zak goes on a quest to contact her spirit in the afterlife while Rix wants revenge at any cost. Niko, the teenage clone of Zak’s dead sister, has received the Eternal virus and been captured by “vampires” who drain her blood nightly for its rejuvenating effects. After Rix helps her to escape, she finds sanctuary at the bedside of her comatose progenitor, Phillip Davis, whose brain is being reconstructed in a clandestine neuroscience laboratory. Zak enlists the help of a famed lecturer on psychic research, Jackie Rose, and together they travel to the home of a Haitian shaman, Tono, a prophetic spiritual healer. Rix and Niko team up to find Mia’s murderer and finally confront her killer in the lair of the Beast who controls the V-net. In book three, the Eternals leader, Helena Sharp, begins to mysteriously degenerate, and the Eternal community is thrown into chaos. When Niko discovers that her gifted daughter, Sienna, carries the future heritage of humanity in her augmented DNA, Niko travels home to confront Phillip. However, he has fully integrated his persona with the Beast, and with the aid of a charismatic avatar, he embarks on a program of manipulation and control that will redefine the boundaries of death and consciousness.