Reset
by Brian Andrews

The premises of the story is that an orb, an object with powers to control the human mind is discovered and let loose on the world.

Chaos follows, with a small team of unlikely people that can possible beat it assemble to fight the orb.

The story is poorly developed, the characters shallow, and the ending so unlikely, its hard to even fit into sci-fi genre.

#Reset #NetGalley

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What if the human brain could be hacked and reprogrammed? In Reset by Brian Andrews, a mysterious floating orb is found in a cave deep within the mountains of Afghanistan. Those who come into contact with the device suffer seizures. Upon recovery, their minds and bodies are hijacked and set on a specific course to alter the fate of earth and humanity.

I was provided a NetGalley advanced review copy of Reset. The unique premise caught my attention, and I found it a suspenseful and fast-paced read. Though some of the scenes and dialogue felt a little formulaic at points, the overall plot was certainly unique and provided a couple of very intriguing turns that more than made up for any lapses in writing style. It was easy to become immersed in the interwoven concepts of near-extinction events and the possibly alien technology that could hack the human brain. The separate stories of the characters blended together well to culminate in a series of events to battle the influence of the mysterious orb.

Brian Andrews’ background as a Navy veteran and nuclear engineer lend well to this military thriller with a taste of science fiction. He is also the author of the bestselling Tier One thriller series with Jeffrey Wilson.

(This review was first published on the Damian Daily blog.)

A mind bending, twist riddled, sleep depriving rendition of yet another world's-brightest-minds-mobilized-to-save-world-from-certain-annihilation-by-UFO book. Not much else I can think of to say without giving something away. This is a really fun read.

Reset is a well done science fiction novel, but one with a message that the author wishes to convey to his readers. Based on scientifically based geological evidence unearthed by experts in the fields there have been five extinctions of life on earth down through the eons. They have been caused by natural events such as comets, fire etc. Is there a six extinction in the near future?
The novel begins with army sergeant Michael Pitcher discovering an object in Afghanistan while he is on patrol. After interacting with it he finds that it possesses unusual powers. He also suffers a traumatic seizure and is sent back to the states for evaluation and treatment. At the same time the object: a cube is packed and sent to authorities in the U.S. for determination of what it is and what are the powers it contains.
Sergeant Pitcher is released from the hospital and sent home to recuperate in company of his wife Josie. But Josie discovers that her beloved husband is a very changed man from the one that was deployed to Afghanistan. He is coldly withdrawn from her and soon empties out their bank accounts and disappears.

Enter CIA agent Dean Ninemeyer who is investigating the disappearance of Pitcher and coincidentally a group of scientists that were involved with him. It falls on Josie Pitcher and Dean to begin searching out answers to what is going on. What they find, and how they go about it provides the meat and bones of Reset and guarantees an interesting story for it's readers. As an afterward Mr Andrews does freely bring out his opinion that mankind itself will bring about the sixth extinction talked about in the book. He cites the failure to pay attention to what he claims is the very real menace of global warming, the explosive growth of human population and the frequent disappearance of other than human species.

This book held my interest from beginning to end and I didn't see how the humans would survive what a mysterious object was doing to them. You'll have to read the book to understand if there were any winners in this battle against the object. The journey to the end is a thrilling, confusing, and mysterious journey and I enjoyed reading how the various characters dealt with what was happening, due to the object and past actions of men.

Are minds being "hacked" by man made or alien technology? What is this strange object that has been found and that affects everyone and everything it comes in contact with? The ending of the book certainly made me think and feel powerless to change the future but if change is to happen, it must happen now or it'll be totally out of mankind's hands later.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for this ARC.