REVIEW and GIVEAWAY
The Jakkattu Vector
(Jakkattu Book 1)
(Jakkattu Book 1)
by P. K. Tyler
P. K. Tyler has just released The Jakkattu Vector, the first full-length novel in the Jakkattu series of sci-fi thrillers! Also available for only $0.99 each: Avendui 5ive (read my blog post) and Twin Helix (ready blog post).
The Jakkattu Vector is currently on tour with Novel Publicity. The tour stops here today for my review, an excerpt, a short interview with the author, and a giveaway. Please make sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
More books and stories by this author: White Chalk (read my blog post), Dead Girl (read my blog post), Heaven's Vault (read my blog post), Alt. History 101 (read my blog post), UnCommon Bodies (read my blog post), Mosaics Volume 2 (read my blog post), CLONES: The Anthology (read my blog post), UnCommon Origins (read my blog post), and Book of Lilith (read my blog post).
Description
They came as saviors to a deteriorating Earth.
Julip Thorne questions whether there is more to life beyond the barren dirt, acidic seas, and toxstorms her people work and die in. Living in poverty on the withering Greenland Human Reservation, she wonders if the alien Mezna goddesses are truly as holy as the temple preaches. Julip begins to dig deeper into the history of the planet and her leaders’ rise to power. But nothing can prepare her for the atrocities she uncovers.
Meanwhile, Jakkattu prisoner Sabaal suffers constant torture and heinous medical experiments as her Mezna-priest captors seek to unlock the key to her genetic makeup. Escaping from captivity, she finds herself suddenly alone on the hostile alien planet of Earth. To survive, she’s forced to work with the same Mezna-human hybrids she’s loathed her entire life, but the more they work together, the more they realize that their enemy is the same.
When humans and Mezna collide, will Sabaal turn out to be the genetic vector the Mezna have been searching for all along, or will she spark the flame that sets a revolution ablaze?
Excerpt
The Feral
It started to rain as they walked, but Norwood kept an impossible pace. Julip slipped and fell more than once, but he just kept going. She guessed he was right to hurry; they had to get back before nightfall so they didn’t get caught. Ma would be furious as it was, what with them gone missing for so much of the day.
The sky darkened despite it still being midday, and clouds rolled in behind them. Back home it would be a mess. Rain put everyone in a sour mood. The sea was too volatile to risk going out when it stormed, and while the rainwater was clean and safe, the ocean steeped in chemicals that could peel a person’s skin before too long. Their father had burning water scars up and down his arms and speckled across his face from working as a jellyfisher for so long. By comparison to other men who worked the sea, he had remained pretty intact.
The Cotillion was probably having a great time. Rain meant clean air and fresh water, for a little while at least. Sometimes if the rain came at the same time as a toxstorm, it would bring the fumes down to Earth, keeping everyone inside for days, sometimes weeks. The last time that happened, Julip had been nine and was forced to stay in her parents’ dwell with no one but her brother for nineteen straight days. The damage the fumes caused still marred the walls of the bedroom they shared.
The siblings had complained, begged to be allowed outside, but nothing they said or did would convince the adults to let them go. Only her father ventured out to pick up a daily ration of food and water from the Center-of-It-All. He would bundle up, covered from head to toe in fabric and plastic. Even his head was wrapped in one of her mother’s scarves, and his eyes hid behind goggles he’d made out of extra window plastic.
Thirteen people died during that storm, and two more were blinded. For months after, there was a rash of stillbirths on the reservation. The Daughters all agreed that the fumes had come down and poisoned the babes. It’d been five years since the last bad toxstorm whipped through Greenland, so one was due to come soon. Julip loved the cool rain as it soaked through her scarf. She uncovered her head and felt the water trickle down her face and saturate her hair. Parents would take the littlest kids on the rez outside, strip them, and scrub them red. Clean rain meant a real washing, not a quick, timed wipe-down with the gray water from the sinks.
Norwood pulled a canteen from his trouser pocket and caught drips of water from the oversized leaves surrounding them. The trees weren’t much taller than him, but the forest canopy closed in as they walked. Soon they walked on dry earth, and the only remaining evidence of the rain was the heaviness of her hair and the sound of water dripping on leaves high above.
“I’ve never been deep in the Wilds,” she said.
“Ya’ve never been shallow in the Wilds.”
“True, but there ain’t even words for this back home. It smells different, dirty, but my nose ain’t pained by it.”
“‘Cause it’s real. This dirt is from the Earth, not the toxes.”
“Why do we have so much tox on the rez if this is right here?”
“I dunno, but I reckon it’s ‘cause we’re human. People made the toxes. In some way, I guess it’s only right we live in ‘em.”
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
"Descriptions are lush and easily visualized, backed with characters that, despite their differences are accessible to everyone, even as you wonder what could happen next. Wholly new and different – there is a sense of this could (did and may be already) happen should we lose the ability to see the similarities in our differences." ~ Gaele
"This is genre-busting at it's very finest. There's a little bit of everything in here and it's done with such skill and flair I'm practically speechless. The Jakkattu Vector is like nothing I've ever encountered before. [...] On the surface it's dystopian science fiction. But this cleverly hides a political thriller with hints of horror and romance thrown in to round out the flavor. In the hate-mongering climate we live in today, this is a timely reminder to us all to believe nothing at face value and question everything we're told." ~ Kristen Lewendon
"As with any series, the first has the daunting task of not only creating the world for the reader, but keeping them there, and The Jakkattu Vector does so very well. Taylor’s world building is complex, but well-planned and written so that the reader can very quickly become immersed in the story, providing just enough back story where needed, and always keeping the plot steaming forward at a good pace. It’s definitely a bleak tale, with some shocking moments, but manages to keep its head above water long enough to keep the reader absorbed, and although there is an underlying tinge of hope that runs through the narrative, it remains to be seen whether the characters will harness it, or fall foul of their baser instincts. The Jakkattu Vector is a well-crafted, compelling read, often provocative and thought-provoking without being overly preachy, and benefits from putting the story first, while still addressing many important issues in today’s society. More importantly, it’s also great sci-fi, and I look forward to reading more in this series." ~ Eamon
My Review
By Lynda Dickson
The Mezna are hailed as saviors when they come to a toxic Earth to save the human race. But what are they really after? In a world of interminable dust, toxstorms, and acid oceans, the Mezna build their hygienic terraformed cities which house the Miscegenate blue-eyed Mezna-human hybrids and the half-robot teks. Outside their cities are the Human Reservations, where the people live in poverty and squalor. And, in the Wilds in between, live the Undone, humans born with severe birth deformities and considered monsters. The Jakkattu Vector interweaves the stories of Sabaal, a native of the planet Jakkatta who escapes from a Mezna breeding facility, and Julip, a fifteen-year-old girl from the Greenland Human Reservation. Insignificant as they might seem, their meeting might just spark a revolution.
The author continues to build the world we encountered in Avendui 5ive and Twin Helix. Here we are introduced to a matriarchal society where Jesus's mother is the supreme deity - Mother God - and where the men are uneducated and only considered good for labor and for breeding. We meet interesting characters from all parts of this new world, and we follow a number of different storylines until they come together in a thrilling climax. Even though the book is science fiction, its message is applicable to today's world. It is a timely warning to all humans about the consequences of continuing to treat the Earth the way we do. We are also given a heartbreaking look at how ignorance can turn people against each other, how people who are basically the same can turn on each other for being slightly different, how discrimination if often based on lies and unfounded beliefs, and how religion can be used to brainwash its followers.
This is story-telling at its finest. While this story is complete, I can't wait to read the next installment of this enthralling new series, The Jakkatu Insurrection.
Guest Post by the Author
Hi Pav. You’re the head of marketing for Novel Publicity, a business woman, and an award winning author. What does a typical day work day look like for you?
A lot like this:
How do you find balance between working life, your family and everything else?
Have a forgiving spouse? I don’t do everything, I can’t. It’s just not possible. Thank god for a man who loves to cook and clean! My kids are getting older now so they need less of my focus and more of my driving skills, so I do a lot of reading in the car waiting for them. I don’t know how to organize it, I kind of just do it. I’m really walking talking chaos so I’m the wrong person to give advice on this.
Do you have any tips for those of us that work from home?
I’d say the most important thing is to accept that you can't do it all and not only is that okay, it’s normal and good.
About the Author
P. K. Tyler is the author of Speculative Fiction and other Genre Bending novels. She's also published works as Pavarti K. Tyler and had projects appear on the USA Today Bestseller's List.
Pav attended Smith College and graduated with a degree in Theatre. She lived in New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off-Broadway. Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry for several international law firms.
Now located in Baltimore, Maryland, she lives with her husband, two daughters and two terrible dogs. When not penning science fiction books and other speculative fiction novels, she twists her mind by writing horror and erotica.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a Kindle Fire, a signed paperback copy of The Jakkattu Vector by P. K. Tyler, P. K. Tyler's entire paperback collection, or a special Jakkattu bookmark.
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