Thirteen

Previously published as BLACK MAN

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Thirteen

By: Richard Morgan

Narrated by: Simon Vance

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About this listen

"This is writing with the brakes off and the adrenaline pumped to high" - Liz Holiday, SCI-FI NOW

"... a cracking thriller which achieves the tricky sci-fi balancing act ... feeling relevant and accessible" - Amazon Reviewer

One hundred years from now, against all odds, Earth has found a new stability; the political order has reached a tentative balance, and the new colony on Mars is growing. But the fraught years of the 21st century have left an uneasy legacy ...

As genetically engineered alpha males, Thirteens were designed to be the ultimate military fighting force but, with no wars to fight, they find themselves surplus to requirements. Many of the Thirteens have left for Mars, but now one has returned, killing everyone on the shuttle on which he arrived.

Only Carl Marsalis, one of the Thirteen, can hunt him down. So begins a frantic manhunt, a battle of survival, and a search for the truth about what was really done with the world's last soldiers.

THIRTEEN (previously published as BLACK MAN) is an unstoppable SF thriller about the ramifications of playing with genetic blueprints. It is also a novel about prejudice, and the human capacity for violence, deceit and corruption.

Read by Simon Vance
(p) Tantor Media 2018

Adventure

Genetic Engineering

Genre Fiction

Military

Science Fiction

Thriller & Suspense

War & Military

Fiction

Exciting

War

Solar System

Mars

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Most relevant

One of the most interesting inventions of this book is "Jesusland". The nickname for a country which emerges from a future United States which has divided itself. Jesusland is a theocratic state made up from the "red states", a place where the institutions are racist, and religious indoctrination is enforced.

When the book came out, some critics cited this idea as extreme and unrealistic.
But reading the book today, in the light of Trump, detention centres for children and everything that has happened, it seems all too plausible.

This book does what great science fiction should do. Uses a plausible what-if scenario as a lens to examine the world today.
It's also a pretty thrilling detective yarn.

Was not thrilled by the narration, which had the (anti) hero, Marsalis sound like a London cab driver, and some of the South Americans sound like they were auditioning for the role of Count Dracula.