"Great SF novel"
In the far distant future three percent of Earth's energy
come from the gas mines above Io, Jupiter's volcanic
moon. The harnessing of energy is the work of the
Furnaces which is the brainstorm of Kingston who created a
powerful empire in which he and his wife are the king and
queen. During the Push, a war was fought to wrest control
of the mines from Kingston but he and his allies were
victorious. To prevent another successful assassination during the war
he created Ringers, surgically transformed men to serve as
Kingston's bodyguards. The system worked and the empire
thrived until an assassin was able to slip past the guards
and kill the king and take control. The ringers and
Kingston scatter and claimants to the empire want the king
to stay gone for twenty days for that means he will be
officially declared dead with his empire to go to the most
powerful claimant. Horracks and his pregnant wife Sari,
once bodyguards to the royals, are asked to find the king
before the time is up. They do not know that Kingston's
illegitimate children and an old enemy working for rival
business man want them to fail. Adam Connell debuts with an excellent future world tale in
which business rules and sabotage and assassination is the
order of the day. COUNTERFEIT KINGS is not a happily ever
after tale but it is a realistic one as business rules the
galaxy. There are many villains in Mr. Connell's story
that readers will love to hate more than they will love
the protagonist, a man who doesn't even know what his best
option is in the coming war. Counterfeit Kings is a
mesmerizing, action-packed and riveting work of science
fiction. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted June 9, 2004
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