The Coming Storm takes some of today's most pressing headlines/issues and amplifies them. This book includes global warming, genetic manipulation, immigration, cultural differences, and nationalism. It's a definite roller coaster and it was hard to find a stopping point to rest. The characters are layered and complex, the pacing, as mentioned, is fast. At times I thought that the story became overwhelming, and I believe, from the unresolved issues at the end, there will be a sequel or series. A series makes sense, given the likeability of the characters. I appreciated the briskness of the dialogue, it seemed to fit both character and situation. I would read more from Mark Alpert.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

After having read Alpert's other work, I was very excited to try The Coming Storm. I was a little disappointed. The Coming Storm is the type of book that should instantly grab a reader and not let go until it's very end, however, as much as I wanted to become engrossed in this one it just wasn't happening. I'm a huge fan of the apocalyptic stories and shows that get me to believe that I could wake up tomorrow and open my front door and see the events jumping from the pages of a scifi novel, with this one I never got that feeling.
It should also be noted that it is the first in a series.

A Perfectly Timed Book

4 out of 5 stars

The Coming Storm is a perfectly timed book that can teach us so much... if we let it. I'm sure this book would not be for everyone.  Especially, once we finally meet the President in this world. We quickly find out who he is based on - that would definitely be a turn off for some.  Not for me though, I thought that the character that he created was correct, to be honest, it was almost too good.

But, I jumped ahead a bit there. When you go back to the beginning we are introduced to Jenna Khan, a brilliant scientist who is being taken by (we find out later) genetically modified federal soldiers. The world and character-building parts weren't slow-paced but were put right at the beginning so we aren't really into any major understandable action until a little way in.

The story, at its heart, I think is a political story.  It's also about a lot of other things including the morality of scientific discovery, testing, and it's about family and the lengths that we will go for them. I'm sure I'm missing some of the main story points but know that it is a scientific-based book that is full of action.

There were language and attitudes that area torn directly from the headlines of today. There was a lot of derogatory terms for non-white characters in this book and you can tell where a lot of it came from.  There isn't a wall per se, but there are many fences that are holding people where they currently are.  And none of this takes place in a southern town - but in NYC.

Another part that I liked that took a backseat to the rest of the things that Alpert was trying to accomplish was that everything was taking place in a post-storm ravaged city.  And the opening scene we're treated to what it's like to live in New York City during a superstorm.  And in an NYC that is flooding because of permanent irreversible climate change. I almost wish that Alpert would write another book to just describe the coastlines and what they went through when the climate finally turned against us.

Overall, The Coming Storm was one of those books that surprised me from beginning to end.  I wasn't expecting to read about super soldiers, CRISPR technology, a battle on the verge of a civil war, or the lengths that family will go to save family, but I'm glad to be surprised in a book like this.  On the outside it looks and sounds like a good thriller that will catch some peoples attention but on the inside, it's just the book I didn't realize I needed.

The premise of The Coming Storm is nothing new. Still, I decided to give it a try. It's an engaging story about the end of the world in a way that is not hard to imagine. It's also too political for my taste. The underlying political climate is obvious, and the story would have been better without it. In the end, I can say that the characters were likeable and engaging, but I didn't enjoy this one. Overall, an okay read. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

In the near future, the Coming Storm is not just the latest superstorm to hit the East Coast but also a reaction to the federal government’s over-the-top response to immigrants.

In 2023, the United States is fighting a war at home. Poor, mostly immigrant neighborhoods in New York City have been made into cages enforced with barbed wire fences and armed sentry towers run by the federal paramilitary group, FSU.

In the meantime, larger and larger storms have hit the city flooding it up to second stories and crushing iconic areas like the Coney Island boardwalk.

Concurrently, the government is running a secret project called Palindrome to modify soldiers’ DNA to make them supersoldiers. Using CRISPR, a real method discovered last year that can do exactly what is described in this book.

Jenna was a scientist on the project until she refused to use her technology to experiment on humans. The FSU knows there are traitors within the project and arrest all the scientists that worked on it for questioning. When Jenna escapes, the chase is on to find her.

The Coming Storm is non-stop action. There is very little down time for talking about plot. The plot itself is definitely “ripped from the headlines” containing an expansion of our current immigrant paranoia, global warming, and DNA manipulation using real science. However, I found the action rather exhausting. Pro-Trump readers will not like the obvious negative references to his wall policies that are constantly being beaten into the reader’s head. This plot would make a great action movie like First Blood, Transformers and even Alien vs Predator. If you like those type of movies, you will adore this book. From me, however, it gets 3 stars.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I gave up on this after reading about 10% of it. It just didn't hold my attention or interest. There was too much backstory left unexplained.

It was a action packed thriller that held my attention till the end. I would recommend this book if you love scifi action movies. I would like to thank netgalley for letting me review this book

Mark Alpert is a new-to-me author, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from The Coming Storm. I struggled with it initially, particularly as Alpert set up some of his central characters and their circumstances. You’ve got your lovely leading lady, Jenna Khan, on the run from insane government operatives who have targeted her for unknown reasons. Cue up the genetically modified rogue soldier, Powell, who kidnaps her in order to rescue her from the evil sanctioned killers who have their own CRISPR gene mods and…

It’s a story I’ve read at least a hundred times by so many other sci-fi thriller authors. But, it was at least readable and I decided to stick with it, placing a few mental bets as to which cliches Alpert would mine next, predicting where the story would go as it followed the formulaic cut-and-paste script of its forebears.

The Coming Storm was not meant to surprise the hell out of me, and yet it did. I thought I’d had it all figured out, knew all its conventions and story beats because of how familiar its opening chapters felt. Damn it all if I wasn’t ultimately wrong in pretty much every one of my guesses on how it would all play out. Alpert surprised me big-time on two separate occasions, and the novel’s midpoint reveal spins this book off on a wildly unexpected plot twist that sucked me all the way in and kept me fully invested straight on through to the end.

A former editor for Scientific American, Alpert has been following news on CRISPR gene-editing methods, such as current endeavors to learn if human genes can be modified to fight off cancer and other illnesses. Alpert takes the science a few steps further, presenting several frighteningly plausible scenarios and how they could be used by rogue agencies and bad actors who seek to undermine American democratic norms by any means necessary, including scary fringe science.

While its backbone is rooted in scientific speculation, The Coming Storm is also surprisingly political, so for all those readers out there who hate the real-world intruding on your pleasure reading, you may want to brace yourself. Alpert sets his novel just a few years ahead of us in 2023. Climate change is wreaking havoc on New York as its islands get absolutely pounded on a regular basis by massive, catastrophic storms. Large areas have turned desolate as the city’s white elite have fled the flood zones beyond the recently built walls separating these poor, ravaged districts from their new, wealthier, heavily policed neighbors. These walls are manned by the Federal Service Unit (FSU), an authoritarian strike-force that makes ICE look like a bunch of leftist handwringers, designed to Make America Great Again.

Alpert pulls no punches in broadcasting the fact that the FSU is wildly fascistic, presenting the organization and its policies through the genetically modified, blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan ideal of Lt. Frazier. Frazier views the world through a wildly racist lens - if you’re black or poor, you’re a criminal; if you’re Arab, like Khan, you’re a terrorist raghead; if you’re trying to get past the fence separating neighborhoods to escape the storms and flooding, you’re just another illegal immigrant. It didn’t take long at all for me to rage against Frazier and hope for his violent end; the sonuvabitch gets introduced in chapter two and I pretty well hated him by the second paragraph. The FSU, of course, is the brainchild of America’s orange-tinted white supremacist leader and his administration, who, having secured a second term in office in 2020, is now working hard to weasel his way into a third term, the Constitution be damned.

Off-hand, I don’t think the (supposedly fictional) president is ever named directly, but Alpert is very, very clearly writing about Donald Trump. One of his advisors notes how difficult it is to explain even basic concepts to POTUS, and that speaking with him is like talking to a child. The president is suffering from dementia, refers to events and people as either terrific, tremendous, or awful, possesses quite the imagination when it comes to estimating crowd sizes at his rallies, and keeps on rallying simply to receive the adoration of his supporters since nobody else can stand to be around him.

In a wonderful repudiation of Trump’s white supremacist attitudes, Alpert has delivered a small band of heroes consisting of marginalized voices. Jenna Khan and her family are Muslim, super-soldier Derrick Powell is Black, and when territorial pissing contests between the NYPD and FSU heat up, it’s the Latino gangbangers who turn out to be the most patriotic warriors.

Despite its generic set-up over the course of the book’s first act, The Coming Storm genuinely surprised me, and, even if it was only initially begrudgingly so, I’m grateful I stuck with it. Alpert had a number of neat little tricks up his sleeve and he won over this jaded reader with some smart commentary on current affairs in the US . The Coming Storm turned out to be a mighty fine thriller, as well a potential warning sign of things to come if we’re not smart and careful, both scientifically and politically. Here’s to hoping that Alpert is way off the mark and we can keep Trump’s second term in office confined solely to the works of speculative fiction.

The Coming Storm by Mark Alpert is an apocalyptic science fiction thriller that takes place in the near future. With a combination of natural disasters and science experiments go wrong the story is filled with action from start to finish.

The story starts in New York City in 2023 as soldiers have come to detain Dr. Jenna Khan forcing their way in and abusing her family. Jenna is a geneticist and she knows what the government have been up to with altering the DNA sequence and trying to produce their own super soldiers and now the government wants her quiet.

The Coming Storm is the type of book that should instantly grab a reader and not let go until it's very end, however, as much as I wanted to become engrossed in this one it just wasn't happening. I'm a huge fan of the apocalyptic stories and shows that get me to believe that I could wake up tomorrow and open my front door and see the events jumping from the pages of a scifi novel, with this one I never got that feeling.

I don't know if it all felt like it was a bit too much or just one of those times I didn't connect for whatever reason. Here I am though a few days after finishing and I'm already struggling to remember the story so it's safe to say this one just wasn't for me unfortunately leaving me to rate at 2.5 stars.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

In 2023, New York City is a dangerous place to be. Superstorms, dangerous floods caused by rising sea levels, and violent squads of soldiers threaten the public daily. Dr Jenna Khan, a geneticist, knows the situation is even more dangerous than most realize. The soldiers are genetically enhanced humans, stronger and more violent than anyone ever imagined. Now the very government that started the experiments into genetic enhancement want to cover it up while they continue their plans to alter humanity. Jenna knows too much. She finds herself on the run. Can she stop the government's plan to forever alter human genetics?

I really wanted to like this book. The book blurb promised a "pulse-pounding'' thriller. But, the story fell flat for me. The plot took a back seat to thinly veiled political commentary. I understand our current political environment is scary....not to mention immigration concerns, hate crimes against muslims and other groups, global warming and a whole host of other problems. I get it. But, I am getting very weary of reading books where authors try to weave current political commentary in with the plot. In this case, it just made this story klunky and trope-y, rather than pulse-pounding or exciting. For me, it killed the story. I never did get "into'' the plot or the characters. I wanted an action-thriller, not a slog through anti-trumpism. Bleck.While I totally understand the sentiments, I'm tired of being hit in the face with it nearly every time I open a book. Trump Trope....I'm over it.

This story disappointed me. But, others might enjoy it. Not every story is for every reader. This one is not for me.

**I voluntarily read an advance readers copy of this book from St Martins Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

I was really looking forward to a great political thriller / mystery. But I was surprised when what I got was a novel that is written with a very definite political bent against our current president and some of his policies.

I don't mind hearing someone's opinion, but not typically in a novel. When a novel is written such as "1984" or "Brave New World," it uses fictitious characters. This novel does not go to any length at all to hide the identity of the characters being written about. Thus, this becomes a political diatribe instead of a novel.

The novel is well written and the sequencing is exciting and draws you in. The plot is that in the future of America there is civil turmoil over the issue of immigration and the President has instituted some programs to move immigrants into secure city locations where they can be monitored.

There is a futuristic sense to the novel in that scientists have developed a way to manipulate DNA and produce "Super Warriors," they have special abilities and extreme strength. They are recruited into a Federal Policing Agency that is tasked with overseeing the detention and rounding up of immigrants. They are pretty much above the law.

The story weaves it's way through New York City and the program designed to alter DNA.

As I said I enjoyed the storyline.

I just wish the author had been a bit more respectful of our current government. You can have your political opinion and you can write a novel against it, just don't be so down right blatant. Remember there are people who are in agreement with a current scenario.

Enjoy!

Mr Alpert's latest novel is in the general vein of 1984 in that it is a warning and a projection of what might happen to any country whose people don't closely watch their governments. The premise is the Machiavellian mantra of Power tends to corrupt but absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely . With these factors in mind the book opens a few years into the future at a time when the United States is suffering from major storms, incredible flooding and other tragedies stemming from the world not paying attention to Global Warming and it's consequences.
Violence and protests have developed as the people suffer from a lack of food, water, electricity and other basic necessities. In order to control these outbreaks the United States government has organized a genetically enhanced police force and forced citizens that are considered less desirable into controlled enclaves. Dr Jenna Kahn, her father and her handicapped brother live in one of these enclaves. The story begins with a raid by the government police looking to arrest Dr Kahn and showing no mercy to other inhabitants in the area. Jenna escapes from the soldiers but loses contact with her father and brother.

Mr Alpert expertly describes this new era and makes his personal views quite well known. It is no problem to determine those present day individuals that characters in the book represent. A plan by the government to test the DNA of all citizens and the possibility of using airborne brain altering aerosols is discussed with plans to spread it are described. The novel utilizes sufficient action to keep the reader interested and sympathizing with people caught up in this brave new world.
The Coming Storm is not the first novel of it's kind and will certainly not be the last. Will it stir people up to examine what is going on with their governments? Interesting question no?