In Review: This Mortal Coil
I have no words. You’re about to read a full review of This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada, but I want to state that I’m at a loss for words, even though I’m about to write a bunch of them. This is the biggest takeaway from this review. After I closed the book, I was speechless about what I’d read. And here is why.
Title: This Mortal Coil Author: Emily Suvada Series: This Mortal Coil #1 Publication year: 2017 Length: 13 hours 26 minutes Genre: Sci-fi, Apocalyptic, YA, Adventure, Thriller Pace: Fast Story focus: Plot
In the future, humanity has found a way to hack into their bodies. Everyone has a panel on their arms that camouflage their DNA with different genes, meaning they can have fangs or grow coloured nails by installing an app. This is achieved by a grown network of cables inside the body that carry nanites, bonding technology with biology. While it vastly improved people’s lives by effectively suppressing some diseases, some people were born with a deadly rare condition called hypergenesis. Catarina Agatta is one of them, and it means she can’t have regular tech running the nanites through her body, or it will kill her. Luckily, her father is Lachlan Agatta, the world’s best genetic coder. He hacked her panel and wrote apps specifically for her condition to keep her safe.
Two years ago, the Hydra virus took over. This highly infectious virus makes everyone who catches it explode into a pink contagious cloud. Anyone that comes into contact with the virus through the clouds or other people infected in the early stages gets infected. Although, at a later stage of the infection, the person releases an odour that triggers the attack instincts of those not infected. And the only way to have immunity is to eat the flesh of those infected at a later stage before they explode.
Catarina has spent these two years alone in her father’s cabin after he was taken by force by Cartaxus, a corporation her father used to work for, to find a cure for the virus. She knows she has to stay hidden from Cartaxus because they will arrest her and use her to manipulate Lachlan. Until a Cartaxus soldier comes looking for her, Cole. Her father is dead, and only she can decipher the vaccine code Lachlan created. She knows her father wanted the vaccine to reach everyone, and now, she needs to unlock the code while keeping it away from Cartaxus’ hands. And with the only help her father sent, a Cartaxus soldier.
From the first chapter, I knew I would love this book. I had no idea I liked a future where humans hacked genes, but apparently, it’s a subplot of science fiction I enjoy now. The setup was what pulled me in. Not only were humans falling into cyborg vibes, but also the apocalyptic atmosphere with the Hydra virus was enjoyable. And the mixture of the two was great.
In the beginning, the story resembles a zombie apocalypse because of how the virus works. However, it doesn’t have any zombies. Cole is straight out Terminator without him being a robot. And so there’s this conjugation of different vibes that make the story feel somewhat familiar without being none of these things. Except for Cole, I still think he’s modelled after Terminator. There are too many similarities for it not to be an inspiration. I mean, you can see for yourself:
“Cole stands in the middle of the road amid clouds of swirling ash, his eyes twin pools of perfect blackness. He has a rocket launcher on one shoulder, his rifle in his other hand.”
Now tell me, isn’t this a scene from Terminator 3? Come on! He’s a sexy terminator with blood and a heart, and no one can change my mind!
As much fun as I was having, I could still see common tropes and predictable plots. And so far, they have all come true except for one. Although I’m still hoping it will play a part in later books. I didn’t guess everything, but even if I did, I was having too much fun to care about it. This is a book I really hit it off. That one in a million you love from start to finish. It also helped how incredibly fast passed and action-packed the story was.
Every time the story slows down a little bit, the author throws a bunch of plot twists. There are so many that I have a theory Emily Suvada would grab pages of her manuscript, cramp them into a ball and toss them across the room. And the number of times the paper ball bounced off is the number of plot twists to add in the upcoming chapters. At some point, I even read a plot twist inside a plot twist. I don’t want to dive too much into this because not knowing any of it surprised me even more. So if you like plot twists, fast pace, and action enclosed in a sci-fi apocalyptic scenario, then you’ll like this book.
From now on, keep in mind, I’m talking with only the knowledge of what happens in the first book in this trilogy. I picked up some small details I’m hoping will connect later on in the other books instead of being small plot holes and inconsistencies. Only reading the rest of the series will tell. Although one thing I’m almost certain won’t happen is a love triangle.
In the first couple of chapters, we learn that Catarina has a slight crush on Dax, her father’s assistant. And they almost had a moment a couple of years back before he too was taken away with Lachlan to work for Cartaxus. So, Cat hopes she can reunite with Dax again. And then comes along our male protagonist, Cole. At first, there isn’t a connection between them. He is also looking for his girlfriend/ex-girlfriend, who ran away from Cartaxus a few years back. But this is a YA book, of course they’ll have a thing for each other at some point. And since there is another male romantic interest, I thought the story would have a love triangle. For those of you who prefer not to have love triangles, I have good news. That option is all sorted out in the first book. At least, as the story stands, it’s very unlikely a love triangle will happen in the next two books. I predict a lot of pain, but no love triangles.
As I said, there are some details that I need to read the rest of the series to see if they were “mistakes”, plot points not so well sorted, or choices that don’t make a lot of sense because they don’t bring anything to the story. After all, this is a debut novel. Therefore, I’m not expecting it to be a perfectly crafted literary masterpiece. But it’s perfectly addictive, for sure!
Overall, I was not expecting to fall in love with this book as much as I did. I knew it would be a great time when I started reading the first page. The familiarity of the plot kept the story easy to get into while not falling into those sub-genres of sci-fi. It’s not a story about a zombie apocalypse, and it doesn’t have any robots or cyborgs, although it resembles it enough to be a recognisable world. And then the whole adventure, the constant changes to the plot, kept me wanting to read one more chapter. In the end, my mind was blown. I predicted a lot of things, but rather than being all revealed at the end, the plot was mutating throughout the story. There wasn’t one big plot twist, instead, there was a collection of them spread throughout the entire book. And that made it a hell of a ride!
If I managed to spark your curiosity, here’s a link where you can read an excerpt of the first chapter and see for yourself if the setup of the book matches with you as well as it did with me.
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