Cantrell's exciting pseudo-fiction, Kingmaker

October 13, 2013 Jeremiah Craig 0 Comments

There are science fiction novels that are so far ahead in the future it takes quite an imagination to perceive the details and storyline. Then there are science fiction novels that seem eerily real, like it really could happen in the near future. Christian Cantrell’s second book, Kingmaker, is exactly that. Kingmaker uses many of the current issues of government surveillance and corporate-political interests and focuses them into a frightening near future story where citizens give their right to vote to the company for which they are employed and the sky and streets are filled with surveillance drones. Throughout this entire novel, I actually felt like this setting could actually happen in 30 to 40 years, which made it that much better to read and very hard to put down at some points.

This is my first book review so I’m going to try not to be too vague while also not giving too much away. The main character of Kingmaker is Alexei. A rogue Russian agent who makes his way to the United States. The States have reached a new level of corruption and surveillance and Alexei makes it his personal mission to restore freedom and democracy to the country. Growing up an orphan, Alexei recruits smart and talented orphan children who have specific skill sets to fight the most powerful corporation in the world, Pearl Knight Holdings.

I read Cantrell’s first book, Containment, eight months ago and while I was reading Kingmaker I started to pick up on specific styles and elements Cantrell weaves into his storytelling. Cantrell often breaks to from the story to explain technology within a specific device but he does it in a fashion adds to the plotlines. Cantrell also reviews new technology at livingdigitally.net so it’s interesting to see him throw in ideas that are being talked about by scientists and developed by engineers presently into his books.

Kingmaker is not all serious. There are some great moments of exchange between Alexei and his computer aid, Emma. She often takes everything that Alexei says literally and their conversations reminded me of exchanges between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Lieutenant-Commander Data from Star Trek: Next Generation. The literal answers and the inability for Emma to detect Alexei’s sarcasm created some great moments of comic relief.

The only thing that threw me in Kingmaker were the time differences between some of the chapters. At first, I was confused whether these time differences were in the flashbacks to the past or forwards to the future but it eventually becomes clear. The storyline holds through these time differences and everything falls into place in a moment of revelation for the reader at a little more than halfway through the book.

Kingmaker hits home after everything that has occurred recently with the NSA and the government shutdown and it reads like a pseudo-fiction rather than a traditional science fiction. It feels like the world Cantrell paints could actually happen in my lifetime. If we do happen to see that world (hopefully we don’t), Kingmaker reminds us that there are always good people who will fight for the best interests of all humanity.

Get the Kingmaker in paperback, digital ebook edition or in audiobook form. You won’t regret it.