The Exodus Towers
Written by: Jason M. Hough
Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: Titan Books (30 Aug 2013)
ISBN-10: 1781167656
ISBN-13: 978-1781167656
‘Their automated ship planted a space elevator on Earth. Years later a virus ravaged the planet. Now the builders have returned. When the second elevator makes landfall in Belem, Brazil, a cluster of mysterious black towers appears at its base. Skyler Luiken and his crew soon learn that the alien structures inhibit the deadly virus and establish a new colony. But when he encounters a crashed builder ship outside of the safe zone, Skyler makes a horrifying discovery: the infected are mutating …
As militants seize control of the fledgling colony in Belem, and power struggles above and below the Darwin elevator threaten to destroy it, Dr Tania Sharma races to predict the next builder event.
Will the last human outposts on Earth survive to see it?’
The Exodus Towers takes up shortly after the events of the Darwin Elevator. The “traitors” are now separated from Darwin, Australia after the discovery of a second alien elevator in Belem, Brazil. Skyler Luiken and the colonists are working to set up a new colony using the new alien towers and their transportable auras. Tania Sharma and her crew are supporting them from above and desperately trying to keep Russell Blackfield from finding out about the colony, while still maintaining the food for air and water trade with him. Meanwhile, Sam Rinn and Kelly Adelaide are still imprisoned by Blackfield within Nightcliff.
Time plays a big factor in this book as the builders are scheduled to do something in two years’ time from the start of the book. Because of this the book is very action packed and filled with questions about the builders and their motives. Are the Builders malevolent or benevolent? Their SUBS disease has wiped out/converted 90% of human life on earth, while their elevators and aura towers are protecting the rest. What do they want?
Some of my favourite things about this book are that we get to spend more time with Sam, one of my favourite characters from the last book. In the Exodus Towers she continues to show the intelligence, leadership and compassion that I admired in the first novel. Also I really want to praise the diversity of Hough’s survivors in a large majority of post-apocalyptic stories the rest of the world is forgotten. However in this novel we have characters from various cultures some of whom don’t speak English. However the main thing I love about this book is that Hough doesn’t tell the same story twice, this book immediately deepens the mystery with a new band of religiously fanatical immunes and some mutating subhumans. The middle book of a trilogy can often feel slow and tedious but not his novel.
The cliff-hanger at the end of the book is almost unforgiveable and very mean however the last book in the trilogy is available from the 24th September 2013 (phew.)
4 out of 5 Nerds
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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