John Wick meets Blade Runner in this fast-paced cyberpunk thriller by the #1 NYT bestselling author of The Will of the Many.
My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s. I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try and crawl out from beneath my debts.
The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the ‘killing people’ part, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So someone’s got to do it.
And luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at it.
Still. This next job… I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way.
I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though.

My Review:

This is a bit of a caper story. More than a bit, actually, but it’s the kind of caper where the protagonist or agent, or whatever Azure thinks of himself as because it sure as hell isn’t “hero” may be the point of view but isn’t as aware as he should be about precisely what it is he has a point of view OF.

Of course he thinks he does. He thinks he’s handling a protection job for the Keres, the agency/megacorp to whom he owes a life debt. Or at least a near lifetime’s service in payment for, well, bringing him back to life.

Azure hates protection jobs. He’d much rather be assassinating the rich assholes who can afford to hire the Keres instead of protecting any one of those assholes. And they are ALL assholes. Which is kind of the point of the whole thing.

In a world where most people are scraping by on the Basic Income, because there are few jobs and even fewer people have the right connections to get them, there are always a few megarich folks who can buy whatever they want. And in a world where immortality can be had for a price (a big, long, price that only the megarich can afford) those people are generally going to be, well, assholes.

Assholes who, since they are over privileged and massively influential – because money talks really loudly – they can commit criminal level assholery however and whenever they like because they can buy their way out of anything. Except for the completely legal crowdfunding of a sanctioned assassination.

Azure is Keres’ best agent for THOSE jobs – and the best agent to prevent them. But he hates those gigs. This time around he’s stuck with just such a job, protecting a very paranoid, really rich, extremely secretive old woman who doesn’t seem to be immortal at all. But is every single bit as much of a conniving bitch as the best of them. Or should that be the worst of them.

The problem with paranoia is that just because you’re paranoid that doesn’t mean that someone isn’t really out to get her. And Azure. And not just because he’s protecting this seemingly fragile old woman who won’t tell him who she is or why they’re after her.

At least not until his supposed bosses send an illegal clone of Azure himself to kill them both – and anyone who might possibly help them. That’s when the truth starts to unravel. Not just the truth of the immortality protocol that she created, but the way that her would-be killers and his scheming bosses have manipulated them both to eliminate them AND take over the world.

Unless Azure can steal it right out from under them. And expose them all.

Escape Rating A-: I had a much better time with Scion than I was expecting. Because it’s not really the way the blurb describes it. Except that it sorta/kinda is. And that obfuscation of purposes, motives and even identities turns out to be part of its charm.

The world setup is a lot like The Heist of Hollow London. Or at least Scion has some of the same vibes. The world is screwed up the same way, in that most people are either on ‘Basic Income’ or are practically owned by the megacorporations that REALLY control the world.

And Azure is caught in the middle of something that he figures out pretty early is a trap, and then decides that the only way he might possibly get out of that trap is to spring it. (Which is what happens in The Heist of Hollow London although it doesn’t happen in the same way.)

The reveal of what is really going on is a bit of a tease, especially for Azure. Not that the reader doesn’t get teased as well but at least we’re not half as cocky about thinking we know what’s going on when we really, really don’t. Azure keeps being sure he’s got a handle on everything, but every time he thinks that, it gets jerked out of his hand.

He keeps thinking on his feet – and he’s good at it – but the rug keeps getting pulled out from under him AND his assumptions. One of which is that the company that employs him, while they’re not exactly ethical from certain perspectives – has at least been playing fairly with him.

Of course they’re not.

The has the feel of a caper in that Azure is constantly on the run, he’s always trying to outthink and outrun an opponent who is multiple steps ahead of him – and he mostly manages to keep running because he has friends in low places who keep getting burned in his destructive wake.

The way the story comes down to the wire is practically breathtaking, as everything Azure thought was true is revealed to be utterly wrong and he’s left trying to decide between burning the world down and taking it over vs hiding in a bunker while it burns down behind him.

That the answer is left open is as fitting for the story and the character as it is frustrating for the reader. But it does leave things open for a sequel – and that’s not a bad thing AT ALL.

This is a story that drags the reader along, kicking and screaming every bit as much as its protagonist, and yet keeps that same reader turning pages because each and every stunning reversal leads to another shattering reveal and a higher level of wtf’ery that seems like things can’t get worse or crazier – but they do. If you love an SF caper that turns you around and shakes you up, Scion is fantastic!