Review: The A-Men by John Trevillian

ISBN #: 978-1848763-432 (dj)

Page Count: 403

Copyright: 2010

About the Author:

(Taken from first few pages of book)

John Trevillian is an author, songwriter and artist, living in the United Kingdom.  Creator of the Talliston interior design project, his novels include the A-Men trilogy, plus Shadowmagick, a collection of poetry, songs, travel journals, short stories and other miscellaneous writing.  The A-Men is his first novel.

Summary:

(Taken from back cover)

Jack is a man with no memory of awakening in a dark and dangerous metropolis on the eve of its destruction.  The only clue to his former life, a handwritten note in the pages of an ancient book of faerie tales entitled Forevermore.

Marked for death in a peace-keeping force sent into the riot-torn city, he finds sanctuary and survival with other renegades on the streets of the place now called Dead City.  Battling to survive they form the infamous A-Men, misfits with a unifying dream to be special.  That is until their paths cross with Dr. Nathaniel Glass and his mysterious experiment locked deep beneath the Phoenix Tower.

Mixing dark future, noir and urban fantasy, join The Nowhereman, Sister Midnight, Pure, D'Alessandro and 23rdxenturyboy as they fight for their lives on a hellish ride through an ultra-violent world of nightmare and death.

My Review:

If you take a bunch of misfits, an evil doctor, the classic never-ending fight of good vs. evil and throw them into a world that's similar to ours, but light years later, then you would have the makings of The A-Men.

There are two major settings in this novel: outer space and Earth. 

This novel is set in a point in time where humans are able to live in outer space.  There are space stations big enough to hold cities of people, but only the wealthy were able to leave Earth and live in these new, desirable locations.  Because all of these people left Earth to go live in space, there are numerous amounts of ghost towns/cities left behind.

Also left behind were the people who could not afford to live in space.  And, since the majority of politicians, military and lawmakers have left for space, the people left behind on Earth are left to their own devices ... which is never good.  Gangs form, lawlessness abounds and territorial fights erupt.  Now, we see the entering of the A-Men come to Earth to either restore order or destroy those that are beyond help.

The characters in this novel were extremely well thought out and depicted in this novel.  The first five chapters introduced us to the five main characters of this novel.  Each chapter (and subsequent chapters thereafter) were written in that main character's viewpoint ... which I rather enjoyed since each person sees the same situation in a different manner.

Overall, this was an action-packed, page-turning futuristic novel that is very easy to read and understand.  I enjoyed getting to know the A-Men and cannot wait until I'm able to read the sequel, The A-Men Return.