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Prodigal by Marc D. Giller
01/12/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Bantam Spectra. 404 page enlarged paperback. Price: $12.00 (US), $16.00 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-38332-9) pub: Bantam Spectra. 514 page paperback. Price: $ 6.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-553-58787-6. Buy Prodigal in the USA - or Buy Prodigal in the UK  check out websites: www.bantamdell.com and www.hammerjack.com
'Prodigal' is the sequel to 'Hammerjack' and in the introduction even author Marc Giller admits to a personal learning curve in working to a stricter deadline. Neo-authors take note of this: life gets tougher after your first book.
An expedition to Mars uncovers a lot of dead and half a dozen people in frozen stasis which are then transported back to Earth. As that will take several months, we instead follow Lea Prism as she leads a team to hunt down Avalon and her team of Ingru in Chernobyl's wasteland as they are in the process of locating a deadly new computer virus. This turns out to be a prototype for what is coming back from Mars and the revived soldiers want to unleash it on the Earth.
Giller's story pace settles down a bit better this time although I have to say all the characters voices are interchangeable. If you didn't know who was talking, then they'd all sound pretty much the same. As such, this tends to damage any emotional impact the characters might have and even the ability to hammerjack that is for certain characters to lock into computers seems vastly underused.
Oddly enough, I think this scenario would probably make a better computer game than a story. Mostly because the action here tends to be unrelenting and because Giller doesn't let us into the rest of this world, I do wonder just what exactly are they fighting for. Saying that, there is indications that there is to be a third novel in this series and perhaps some of the answers will be there.
GF Willmetts
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