The Illumination Query
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Ronald Carpenter (the narrator) is a zookeeper that gets help from a company called The Eclipse when he needs to recapture some escaped animals. The company takes a shine to him and lures him into working for them. They are keeping a zoo of animals that they use for medical testing and are happy to have his expertise in accommodating them. To prove his loyalty they have him come along to take the scientist Nigel hunter captive.
Ronald and Nigel come to find out that the creatures kept by The Eclipse are supernatural animals that the average person would not consider real. The Eclipse is keeping ‘fantasy’ creatures for testing because they have no legal protections and many of them, like werewolves, are nearly human.
Now the story is from Nigel’s point of view and the time is set back to a little before he was taken captive. Nigel Hunter was working for a lab owned by The Eclipse, but his test animals were rats and he is unaware of the supernatural testing. After an accident, he decides to test a procedure that allows great speed on himself. The rats with the increased speed begin to die off. The Eclipse higher ups decide that Nigel is as good as a test animal and get Ronald to take him captive.
Being held with the test creatures, Nigel becomes friends with the beings he is kept among as he is basically tortured by Eclipse folk who want to see the impossible speed. He and friend creatures decide that he is fast enough to possibly escape and get help to stand against The Eclipse.
Customer Reviews
Fantastic Read!
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.
A simple tale of a zoo keeper takes a dark turn in author Sarah Baethge’s novel The Illumination Query. Here’s the synopsis:
A surreal romp about a dissatisfied zookeeper’s endeavor to contemplate his toxic new allies as they create an terrible situation for his unintended enemy to grapple with.
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What makes someone a monster?
The zookeeper Ronald Carpenter needs help recovering his escaped charges and is grateful when the secretive Eclipse company steps in to help. Little does Ronald know just how nefarious a company they really are and why they have such expertise in taking unwilling subjects captive. Can their offer of a higher salary make him leave a job he loves and help them do what he feels is just wrong?
Nigel Hunter’s experiment in an Eclipse lab looks like it could enable incredible movement powers. Intrigued with the prospect, he voluntarily gets the company’s help to try the procedure upon himself. The Eclipse now decide to take him prisoner with their other test subjects so that they can test the unbelievable speed it has given him more fully.
When the Eclipse pits Ronald and Nigel against one another in this way, can either one of them manage to get away?
This story is like Frankenstein meets The Island of Dr. Moreau, where a zoo keeper finds himself in a deal he literally cannot refuse, overseeing security for some of the strangest and most dangerous creatures on the planet, while one scientist takes an experiment into his own hands and suffers the ultimate consequences. This story was filled with twists and turns galore, exploring a world of mad science and exploring the way humanity treats the animals of this planet, often caging them rather than letting them live free and open in the world.
The story and it’s background are what really thrive in this novel. The mythology being built of supernatural and scientific creatures alike, amazing abilities and dangerous science gone wrong are all so mesmerizing to read that one can’t help but be drawn into this amazing world created by the author. The scientific methodology used for this story all makes it so believable that you almost start to imagine what kind of secret organizations and creatures are hiding in the shadows of our world…
Overall I loved this story. It was fun to read, quick and fast paced, and delivered an incredible first entry in what should be a whirlwind adventure. If you haven’t yet be sure to pick up your copy of The Illumination Query by Sarah Baethge today!