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What is the Blood Red Sphere? Hamilton Helios, cactus juice addict, PTSD survivor and scavenger doesn't know, but everyone else on Mars seems to think he does. Why are Earth's central government, the break-away barons of the Oort Cloud, the native Martians, and more than a few sadistic criminals willing to kill for a nondescript sphere of red lacquer? Helios wishes he knew. Whatever the reason, secret agents, psychopathic religious fanatics, law enforcement officials, and wild Martians are all on his tail. To make matters worse, his business partner has been murdered, and Helios himself is under suspicion. Will Hamilton Helios learn the secret of the Blood Red Sphere before it plunges all of Mars, if not the whole solar system, into war? Or will he, like so many others before him, die for that secret?
Lawrence Barker's novels, Renfield and Mother Feral's Love, have taken us from Victorian England to a human colony orbiting a double star. Lawrence's fiction tends to fall in the twilight world between genres, not quite fantasy, not quite science fiction, and not quite horror. His short story Cyrus Fell's Blues, a tale of a space alien vampire in 1930's Georgia, won the 2007 James Award. Uncharacteristically of fiction writers, Lawrence hold a Ph.D. in statistics. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife Pam and multiple quadrupeds.
"Barker (Renfield) shifts from horror to SF with this
energetic and engrossing thrill ride. Recovering addict Helios makes his
meager living selling ancient artifacts scavenged from the surface of Mars.
Several disreputable criminals barge into his office one day, demanding he
sell them the titular sphere, which he knows nothing about. Helios quickly
finds himself on the run from both his clients and the law when his partner,
Barabbas, is found knifed in the throat. Barker's well-crafted world absorbs
and fascinates, populated by intriguing new races and the ominous Combine, a
massive central processor that links together and eventually overshadows
human minds. The plot is sometimes predictable, and overeager info-dumping
from minor characters ties loose ends together a bit too aggressively, but
the deft pacing and Helios's genuinely good nature are compelling to the
end." |
