The Electric Church

July 30, 2007
Somers packs his techno-thriller debut with enough gunplay and explosions to satisfy a Hollywood producer. Earth is now the System of Federated Nations, governed by the Joint Council and policed by local cops and the hard-nosed System Security Force (SSF). Most people are have-nots, struggling to get by through any means. Avery Cates is one of them, a respected 27-year-old bodyguard and assassin for hire working in Old New York. When Avery kills a cop by mistake, SSF chief Richard Marin hauls him in and gives him two choices: execution or taking on the Herculean task of assassinating the founder of the Electric Church, which creates converts by killing people and transplanting their brains into robot bodies that quash free will. The job would be a lot easier if Avery wasn't being hunted by a couple of cops who don't know when to quit. Somers's plot sprints along through the nicely detailed (if slightly unoriginal) world, but the characters are the real prize in this entertaining near-future noir.

September 15, 2007
Avery Cates is an assassin with few morals. After he finds himself in the hands of the law, facing charges of murdering three policemen, he accepts a bargain against his better judgement: freedom in exchange for the assassination of the head of the Electric Church, whose cyborg monks are creating an army of slavesrobots with human brains. The author of "Lifers" and "The Freaks Are Winning" creates a dark future of high tech and low dreams in an action-filled noir thriller reminiscent of "Blade Runner". A good addition to most sf collections.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2007
When the worlds governments finally put aside their differences and join hands in the System of Federated Nations, the results fall painfully short of utopia. Perpetually on the run from System police, native New Yorker Avery Cates sees the economic ruin afflicting his country firsthand, while scraping by as a two-bit hired assassin. Already squirming under false accusations of killing an undercover officer, Cates now finds himself tailed by members of a bizarre new cult, the Electric Church. While promising virtually immortal cyborg bodies upon initiation, the churchs ubiquitous monks also apparently recruit most of their members by first murdering them. When a ploy to shake both cops and monks ends disastrously, Cates figures his days on the streets are numbered. Yet arrest and interrogation by the System polices CEO leads not to execution but to a new assignment. A gritty, original blend of street-smart action and fanciful religious speculation, Somers stunning debut introduces one of the genres most promising newcomers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)