5/8 |
The Bastion Prosecutor Episode 2 £6.99
Genre: Crime/Thriller/Adventure
Category: Science Fiction
Subcategory: Sci-fi Series (Kalahari)
Author: A.J. Marshall
Paperback, 368 Pages
ISBN: 0-9551886-5-2 / 978-09551886-5-7
Synopsis
The Bastion Prosecutor is about man’s legacy on planet Earth. It is about where our ancestors may have come from as much as where faith dictates we did. It is a glimpse into a future. It is about the antagonism between learning and belief; science and religion; a dilemma that has risen and waned since the earliest civilisations. It is about conviction, not just in accepted ideals but also the unacceptable. The Bastion Prosecutor is about the frontiers of space. Man’s inevitable pursuit of the unknown and his innate need to colonise, driven in this case as much by environmental calamity as by instinct. It is about technology and the misuse of knowledge. The Bastion Prosecutor is about high adventure and love, about deceit, greed and the unexpected. It is about a tapestry of secrets where threads pass from past to future. Finally, it is about hope. The Bastion Prosecutor, an epic trilogy – science fiction at its most believable.
Extract from the book
The vertical shaft was narrow and claustrophobic. Asharf had slipped down with relative ease and Naomi, evidently well practised as well as fiercely independent, had climbed down the cable, arm over arm, like a professional. For Richard, however, it was a different story. The diameter was smaller than it promised and despite an apparent off centre quiver of the drilling bit, there was barely room for his shoulders; even by collapsing his chest, restricting his lung capacity and hunching his shoulders together under his chin, it was tight. He had squeezed into the hole feet first, exhaled and wriggled to allow his body to drop and taken a last, hapless look at the dreary surroundings before his head disappeared below the desert surface. Now an anxious frown was stamped across his forehead and an uneasy churning unsettled his stomach. It was as if the resentful desert made claim on every living thing, and he felt as if he was being swallowed.
Surprisingly, tiny spores of green, greasy mould had already begun to deposit themselves on the mainly smooth walls of the shaft and, combined with a continuous film of running water, their effect added lubrication to his descent. Even so, his clothes began to bunch up uncomfortably.
Eventually, looking down between his legs, Richard could see occasional flashes from Asharf’s torch beam; whilst looking skywards, through the two-metre tube of limestone he had already painfully negotiated, an occasional raindrop splattered on his face. His discomfort increased with every slithering centimetre he descended. He could endure being wet, miserable, and downright wretched; but jammed in a hole, barely able to move, he sensed his vulnerability. Richard shuffled and squirmed, exhausting his lungs from time to time in order to collapse his ribcage. Little by little, he slipped further and further down.
After six metres Richard stopped to rest, he merely had to take a hearty gasp of damp, fusty air to secure his position. He was beginning to get cold. His head and face were soaked and he had suffered several grazes to his back and shoulders from the unevenness and the occasional lump in the shaft wall. Below him, Naomi and Asharf – having already safely alighted on the smooth stone floor of the great mausoleum – grew increasingly concerned.
Before commencing his decent, Richard had first dropped their rucksacks down the shaft and then followed the three bags with his coat, and Asharf – who had missed its fall in the darkness and subsequently retrieved it from a shallow puddle – followed his orders by checking various pockets for his pager, torch, Illuminac and ISTAN. Naomi, meanwhile, who was mumbling nervously in Arabic whilst repeatedly looked upwards, soon had Asharf shouting encouragement.
‘Effendi!’ He called, cupping his hands around his mouth to direct the sound upwards. ‘The roof of the tomb lies three metres above us, which means no more than three metres remaining. You should make haste, Effendi . . . quickly, you must continue!’
Reader's reviews
"This, the third installment, continues to enthrall. Tense excitement both inside the great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza and around the 'Elysium' Pyramids on Mars. Robot assassins, Holograms of the dead, the Atlantis connection, a spaceship controlled by a computer with a mind of its own and a quest unravelling mysterious ancient civilisations; this saga has it all.
Unreservedly recommended!!!"
"This author was un-known to me when I first read The Osiris Revelations. His writting and story telling has kept me spellbound. I have read his second book The Bastion Prosecutor Episodes 1 and 2 with as much enjoyment and can not wait for Episode 3 to be released. I hope he will produce many more books for my enjoyment."