Eden's Serum (Eden Lost) Paperback – October 7, 2015

Eden’s Serum by Angelique S. Anderson is a speculative fiction novel set in the near future. This work borders on fantasy due to some pseudo-tech that is more like magic than science. Especially in the time frame presented.This is a fast read and I blasted through the book in two sittings. The story opens with protagonist Adam racing to his place of employment due to a bomb threat and the potential loss of his research. The police resolve things without casualties or destruction, and the perpetrator ends up being his boss. His work and career are safe. Fast forward two years and Adam is approaching a hospital where he is preparing for a radical leonization treatment. I am okay with this abrupt right turn, but others may want a little more world building and transition into this aspect of the story. We are expositively shown the big-brother identi-coin technology that has secured Adam’s future. Integrated bio-dentify is something we already are capable of now with RFID and even more sophisticated technologies. The issue hasn’t been the tech, but societal integration. Author Anderson brushes across some of the privacy issues and drawbacks. I can’t decide whether it’s ironic or unbelievable that Adam, one of the principle contributors to the tech in the story, doesn’t anticipate the privacy issues that piss him off. At any rate, in my mind 2020 is waaay too soon for socio-identity integration. Practical leonization and nanotechnologies are also possible but significantly further off than four years. The science hurdles are the least of any life-extension technology’s acceptance difficulties (more on these two issues in my setting notes).Adam’s misgivings about the treatment don’t work for me in this. The disclaimers about the possible side-effects, the expense, piled on top of possible fraud should raise more alarm bells than they do. This is a story though and he didn’t anticipate invasive identity-authentication affecting his life either.In a span of a chapter, the story becomes a conspiracy plot it is this change and the voice of the narrative thereafter that leads me to identify this as speculative rather than science fiction. The two technologies and their ramifications simply aren’t explored enough.Categorization aside there’s a decent mystery to be solved and the hero and his assistant Evelyn are appropriately hounded and challenged. I thought that story was very light on flunkies… I was a little bit baffled by the idea of company execs doing their own dirty work.Things eventually come to a head. The resolution is a little bit pat, but this novel is a bit on the fluffy side anyway.Rating (1-5)Execution : 3.95 — This reads well and confines itself largely to Adam’s viewpoint with a couple lapses where it drops to Evelyn (and once to Dr. Pearson). The diction is slightly off in as much as Adam is supposedly a tech guy, but just doesn’t seem to talk or act much like one at times. Overall, the diction changes in patches, sometimes tight, other times kitschy. Physical registers and sensory are present in this, and do a better than average job of bringing some of the setting details off the page. I wanted a little more nuanced usage to elevate other moments of the story however.NOTE: I am in official loathe mode with the word ‘smirk’. I’ve seen the word in the last four books I’ve read. Authors, don’t have your heroes ‘smirk’. Ugh. Nobody likes a smarmy smirker! It’s a smug arrogant air of superiority best attributed to antagonists and characters we are not meant to like. Heroes don’t smirk. /rant.Setting : 3.85 – 4.1 — There are good setting details in this. The science is a little expositiony but not overly bad. It is quite light on authentic sounding detail and could benefit from the lingo. My main quibble is just the time frame. Universal identification, check. Implemented in four years, there’d need to be some huge catastrophe… mass terrorism or something that scared people into giving up their privacy. The technophobes of the U.S. would not go softly into compliance. The are leonization (longevity) trails currently underway. So, it is possible, once all the religious screaming and caterwauling, government regulation, and who knows what else was finally overcome (something that realistically would take decades). What isn’t explained is how the non-working product ever got to public consumption. There’s mention of celebrities and such being treated how did it go undetected? There is the side effect which I won’t ruin for readers. I wonder if author Anderson considered that “product” more viable for say– soldiers.Character : 3.3-3.8 — Let me get one bit out of the way (Eden + Adam / Eve) is just a little too on the nose for me. Other folks may not notice or care, but I am picky. That being said, as I wrote earlier, Adam’s portrayal is slightly problematic. I think some of that is that what he actually does for a living is left a bit ambiguous. There is mention of research but his inner thoughts just don’t sound like an engineer. What would sell the identicoin technology would be some kind of underlying security. The big fear now of uni-ids is that consumer identities would have to be stored in the cloud. Then the problem becomes what happens if the data is compromised, or there’s loss of connectivity, sunspots or whatever. So, the breakthrough would be in some kind of up-time and reliability… that and the tech being cheap enough to be ubiquitous. Anyways, never mind the ramblings of a computer scientist…Evelyn, on the other hand, I like as a character. We learn a fair amount about her, although her relationship and the seven years prior to showing up in Adam’s office is a bit sketchy. Had she given up on her mission? That wasn’t clear.In the cases of both Adam and Evelyn there was a tendency to tell rather than show. Other times the inner narrative was fine.I thought more should have been done with the HR lady Ms. Ellie. I feel author Anderson missed an opportunity not to humanize her more and make the reader like her. This would have made a more dramatic impact on the protagonist in the latter stages of the story. I think more mileage could have been gotten out of Doctor Plath as well.Overall : 4.0 — This is quick easy read without overt gore, cussing, or violence. It takes a shallow swipe at privacy and the inequities of society, and makes some veiled comments on people not knowing what’s really important in life. All positive things. There are some rough spots as noted, but in all it’s a worthy read. I look forward to author Anderson’s next creative endeavor.--Will GreenwayAuthor of the Ring Realms Cyclehttps://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007OWPNMC

Verified PurchaseA Tense Thriller with an Edge of MysteryAdam Carpenter is not a nice man. As he himself says at the end of the novel, "Until you and this whole incident, I wasn't any kind of guy. I was a money hungry, power craving, expensive car enthusiast. I was selfish and didn't care about anyone but myself."According to conventional wisdom, a writer's main character should usually be somewhat likable. It's to Angelique S. Anderson's credit that we still like Adam despite the fact that he never seems to think of anyone but himself. Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Well, Adam has lived that kind of life. On top of everything, he's invented an Identicoin that will help business and the government keep track of everything we do. Talk about Big Brother!Then in his egotism he goes even further. He lets himself be injected by the super-expensive Eden's Serum so he can live forever and enjoy immortality. It is here that the story becomes really interesting. He meets a girl with the not-so-subtle name of Evelyn and soon they are on the run while the bad guys seek to kill them. What's it all about? What's the reason for the great conspiracy that is causing people to die around them? What do the bad guys, whoever they are, not want the public to know about Eden's Serum?This is a page turner, and only toward the end does the narrative falter. There are some logic problems, such as when the guards fail to frisk Adam and take his gun. For that matter, why does the author let him keep the gun if he isn't going to use it? Also, the last seven pages or so are basically anticlimactic exposition as the author wraps things up. They could have been quickly implied, ending the novel with more punch. Still, this is a good read with a timeless message about science: There are some things that man should never do.

This book is a very readable and fun science fiction romance. Its fast pace and plot twists made it feel like a screenplay for a summer sci fi action thriller. There were a couple of times the plot genuinely surprised me and made me sit up in my chair and take notice. That rarely happens to me any more as a reader, even with science fiction.Having worked in the biotech industry, I didn’t find the life-extension science here to be particularly believable, even in the near future, but the author did enough research and told a good enough story that I was willing to (mostly) suspend disbelief in an immortality serum and go along for the ride. I had a harder time believing that the underlying conspiracy could have gone on for as long as it did without being found out and shut down much sooner. There are already a number of biotech companies and even more academic labs working on the problem of life extension, so Plant Harmonics would not have been alone in that space. And even in our own time, if a tech company’s technology is thought to be fraudulent or even based on shaky data, the market shows signs of being self-correcting. For example, look at the rise and precipitous fall of Theranos.The characters were appealing, but were pretty standard SF heroes and villains. Adam, the protagonist, was recognizable as a Silicon Valley overachiever who had lost the art of relationships. Evelyn was realistic but we didn’t learn much more about her than that she was pretty, spunky, and loyal to family. Watching these two characters get together romantically as they solve a massive technological conspiracy was enjoyable but not particularly memorable. The villains had some interesting, even poignant motivations for doing what they did, but I think they needed to be much more devious.I would read other books by this author as I think she writes intelligently and has ideas about corporate invasion of privacy that deserve to be fleshed out further. With this novel she seems to be on the path of finding her own voice and exploring the themes that she finds most important.

Encapsulated in a beautiful cover, ,this horrific story tells about a world where tech has advanced far beyond the need for identification and money, and even illness. Eden’s Serum is one that only the richest of the rich can afford, offering youth, health and above all, immortality. But as Adam is about to find out, not everything is as it seems, and his ultra rich bachelor life may not b as satisfying as it once was.After developing a kind of super card that took the world by storm, dubbed simply the Identicoin, the book begins with an emergency. And Adam is headed head first into the bomb threat at his workplace to do whatever he can to save his life’s work. Interesting enough, this opening scene really sets the pace for the rest of the book, if you can believe it. Because two years later, the Indenticoin has completely taken over the world. And Adam has more money than he knows what to do with babies are now assigned an Identicoin at birth, holding all the important paperwork they could ever need for their upcoming lives, and are required to wear it at all times in public by law.The next technological leap that Adam wants to take with his life is making himself immortal. Through injection and claimed to be made from plants, it seems safe enough, after all, Adam’s genius must stick around as long as possible so that he can continue to change the world with his inventions. But is it truly safe? Has it even been fully tested? And why do the doctors preparing him for this next part of his life seem so sketchy? What are they hiding?Aside from these everyday problems; Adam’s work turns out to be spying deep into his personal life, which he’s obviously not happy about, but is willing to put up with it for a cushy promotion, new house, and a workplace he’s allowed to run, by himself. But not long after his injection, he goes to work hiring people for his new office, and begins experiencing horrible blackouts, accompanied by blinding pain.Honestly, I really enjoyed this book. I love things about tech and the future and everything like that, and this book fits that perfectly. It was mysterious and exciting, and all the characters were very realistic with their good and bad traits showing for everyone to be hyperaware of. I was very interested in uncovering everything that was hidden by the higher-ups in this story, and the big adventure that Adam and Evelyn have to o through to really get to know what’s really going on was extremely gripping and easy to get into. I think this was a really great take on the classic Adam ad Eve and the Garden of Eden story. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next in the series, and I think to put it simply, this is a great story about trusting y our gut and your own intuition. If you like science fiction and are sixteen plus years old, and also not squeamish about violence, I would say definitely give this book a shot!(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

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