Recently I received a copy of Simeon, a Novel by Nick Carlson.
The Story
When Diana – a defector to the Soviet Union – blows up her own American platoon in an act of terroristic defiance, she finds herself shuttled to a secret military laboratory deep in the Siberian tundra.
There she melds with its community of workers and finds herself at the mercy of shady Director Ivanov’s bizarre and restrictive policies. Their experiment is a hybrid of man and ape, reared to be the ultimate soldier. But as a mysterious delusion passes among the workforce, and as friends and enemies succumb to the madness, Diana uncovers an existential corruption; not just in what she believes, but in the human condition itself.
The Review
Simeon is a Soviet style deep dive into chimeric human hybrids. I was introduced to Diana, an American military defector who undertakes deep vengeance defects to the Russian state then the Soviet Union.
These events are however just a pretense for a look into the human psyche which is portrayed through the fusion of humans and apes showing an underlying connection to the evil that men do.
The character development was really interesting while keeping me engaged with the events unfolding around Diana, being a fan of Soviet era technology and sociology it was a very unique take on the events of a world gone by.
Without spoiling a fairly good novel I would say that as an upcoming writer Nick is on a great path of storytelling while including a parallel almost subliminal story to define that the wrongdoing we think we know may be nothing compared to the general evil inside the whole of humanity.
The bottom line is that the Novel would make for a good mini series or a one off film.
If you like chimeras and horrorish Soviet experimental science fiction then you really should give Simeon a chance, while the book is not perfect by any means I believe that it has its place and is unique in its own way bringing me to conclude that spending five bucks on this Novel is certainly not a waste of money.
I rate Simeon 3 out of 5 stars on the Horror Facts rating scale.
Until next time stay strong Comrade.
