Listening News

Spoiler Alert: Since this book has been available for some time, I dicuss more of the plot than I normaly would.

‘Descent’ is the first podcast novel of J.C. Hutchins 7th Son trilogy and the second serialized novel I discovered after moving from radio to podcasts during my ten hour shift. It could be described as a contemporary sci-fi thriller, that goes a little overboard. Hutchins begins with a interesting concept where seven clones are made from geneticly engineered child, who are then rasied believing they are the original. The original, code named John Alpha, is brought to the research facility to participate in the experiment. He becomes unbalanced and begins a plot to rule, or destroy, the world. The clones are then brought in and asked to help find and stop Alpha. 

Hutchins also illustrates Moore’s Law by describing a cavern filled with ’70s vintage Cray supercomputers needed to up/download Alpha’s personality into the clones. Alpha uses current tech to fashion a device to acomplish the same ends about the size of a Playstation 2. At first I counted this over the top, but on reflection it’s one of the more believeable aspects of the tale.

Ok, now that the good points are out of the way…

John Alpha was using his mind control to spread like a virus, and had the clones following the leads he provided from the begining. Some of the clones were leading a strike team into what they knew to be a trap, while various Alpha agents were taking control of the US Vice President, a Russian general, and a nuclear missle base. The evil plan was ticking away like clockwork, but there was no real suspense. To me it felt as if the plot was on rails, with no hope of redemption short of deus ex machina. This may be unfair because I have not finished the novel, but it’s one of the reasons I put it aside. Another problem was the trouble keeping the characters straight. Hutchins did publish a guide on his website, but that did me no good in my listening enviroment.

I generaly prefer a straight read to the full radio drama with sfx and music. This novel was read by the author, which I applaud, but some of the voices he used grated on my nerves. The cross promotion with other podcasts led to quest narrators reading the “What Has Gone Before” segment. This could be annoying as some tried to put thier own spin on the text. I started listening after the entire novel ws released, so the “WHGB” segment was redundant as well. Maybe a stripped version could be offered from the archives.

All in all, while I wish the author continued success, I am not a fan of this work. I will keep an eye out for whatever his next project is, and give him another listen.