Shadow City
Anna Mocikat
SciFi/Dystopian
Los Angeles is an apocalyptic wasteland.
Without orientation, Colton stumbles through the vast, deserted city. He doesn’t remember who he is and where he came from. Scavengers save his life from mutants and bring him to the only remaining inhabited area and safe Zone in former Hollywood.
There he learns that after a devastating catastrophe called The Glitch, reality shifted, allowing nightmarish creatures from another dimension to enter our world. These co-called Dark Ones feed on suffering and violence, wanting nothing less than the complete annihilation of humanity.
Colton discovers that he has extraordinary abilities and joins a league of unusual defenders: ex-cop Eric, female cyborg Bombshell and Vincent, a mighty entity from another world, disguised as a human soldier.
But the Dark Ones are evil beyond imagination and with their ice-cold enforcer, the traitor Eurydice, they are a threat nearly impossible to overcome. Cunning and ruthless, Eurydice sets a ploy in action, which leads to the destruction of the Zone’s defenses weakening the tiny community from within. It’s up to Colton and his friends to take a desperate stand against the superior enemy and save what is left of humanity from extinction.
Uncaged Review: Most of the time when I read a dystopian future novel, we have a good idea what happened to the Earth to become that way, whether it be human fault, a virus, a meteor, aliens, etc. There always seems to be a “plausible” explanation that turns the world into a “Walking Dead” or “Mad Max” scenario. The world that is created here is a little more vague, which is one of the negatives for me. Although the world is crafted in detail, the events leading to it (The Glitch) wants us to suspend belief and try to wrap our heads around a rift in a parallel dimension or world. Out of this rift, comes the Dark Ones and monsters of human hungry proportions. Set in the city of Los Angeles, the only thing protecting what’s left of humanity in this city is in the Zone, protected by the Force. Vampires in this book are protectors of humans, since the extinction of humans would be the end of their long lives.
Many characters are multi-faceted and will be interesting to see who they are in upcoming books. Vincent – is definitely not human and taken over a body for a mission. Eurydice is a rogue vampire who is an enforcer for the Dark Ones and is taken with Vincent – and who gets prominent attention on the cover of the book, although at this point, she is no hero. Colton, who has no memory of who or what he is, is also an interesting mystery along with Bombshell, a female Robocop of sorts.
This book is dark, and well described, and borderlines on horror. But it’s well worth the read if you are looking for a dystopian book that is not all about zombies, although those seem to make their way into this series as well, just a bit different than most. Reviewed by Cyrene
