Fetch Your Copy Robyn's Egg Crafted By Mark Souza Conveyed In Pamphlet

Indie Reader Discovery Award Winner for Best Science Fiction

In a dismal future driven by corporations, where most citizens are human billboards focused on status and entertainment, Moyer and Robyn Winfield struggle to attain a baby.
Moyer doubts he will make a good father, His wife Robyn, however, is frantic for a child, and Moyer wonders how long his marriage will survive without one, In an age when babies must be cloned and purchased, the high cost almost makes the point moot,

When his wife learns their friends negotiated the price of their baby, she sends Moyer to HoganPerko, a corporation with a monopoly on human cloning, to negotiate for their child, and Moyer finds himself face to face with Viktor Perko The Father of Mankind.
The cost for their baby, all of their savings and the promise of a favor, Moyer agrees and is soon asked to spy on Perko's enemies, After reading several short stories by Mark Souza, I was excited to get hold of this full length novel, I knew it was described as being a 'Futuristic Thriller' but I was completely unprepared for how much distance had been placed between his earlier writing and his latest offering.
I am a total horror fan, so without Souza's name on the jacket, I wouldn't have picked up this novel at all, However, I am so pleased that I did,
For two nights and three days I was completely engrossed in the struggles of Moyer and Robyn Winfield, This was an epic novel which started quite sedately, A married couple living in a futuristic society wife desperately wants a baby but there are a few hoops to jump through before this wish can be fulfilled.
The baby issue opens a massive Pandora's box which ultimately puts the human race at risk, It's an intricate story in which Moyer goes from being an average pen pusher to Superhero, meeting so many fascinating characters along the way,

I loved this book, I was entranced with the culture of Souza's futuristic populace, Not being a scifi fan, this was all pretty new to me and I enjoyed spotting the projections of today's society and wondering if this is what we are heading for.

The characters were well rounded and believable, I found myself warming more to Moyer than Robyn in the opening chapters, as I felt her desperation for a child had somehow made her selfish to the needs of her poor husband, however by the end of the story I found that both characters had completely altered from who they were.
The trials they had endured throughout the story had reshaped their personalities into characters it was sad to close the book on,

My only criticism of this book was that in the lead up to the finale, I felt a little bit 'swamped', I felt there was so much going on within such a short space of time and it didn't give the reader a chance to reflect on what had just occurred.
This didn't spoil my enjoyment of the story at all and I am happy to say that, while I'm not a Science Fiction convert, I would add this to my favourites.

I received a copy of this book from the author in return for an honest review,

I love Science Fiction and Dystopian genres, so when I was offered the chance to read this book, I snatched at it, I loved it!

Moyer Winfield is a wonderful character, I liked him very much, He is a hardworking computer programmer/analyst in a huge corporation, He is not particularly the bravest person to have as a lead character, but I found this made him more human and lifelike to me, Living in a future where children are a commodity due to a disaster of biblical proportions, he finds himself thrown into a dangerous game that could get him and his family killed.


I started reading this book, and I was catapulted into a possible future that frankly scared me to death! I love a good science fiction novel, but this is so much more than that.
It is also a great thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat! This story is not easy to put down once started, because there are several twists that keep the reader hooked and wanting to find out what would happen next.
The story is told from both Moyer and his wife, Robyn's point of view this made it very interesting, Some scenes reminded me a bit of the movie "The Minority Report", especially the shopping ones, which I loved, but I wouldn't want to live in this world for any money in the world! The frightening thing is, I could see this present world we live in evolving into Moyer's world in no time at all, and this thought terrifies me!
There are some truly scary characters in this book, but I have got to say that Viktor Perko is one of the scariest, not to mention the creepiest! However, there are also some wonderful characters too, which gives the book some balance.
Robyn is a woman with a ticking biological clock, which can, in some cases in real life, make people do some crazy things to get a child.
I felt sorry for Moyer, because I think he was not ready to be a father and felt pressured, However, I think Robyn is so blinded by her desire to be a mother that she becomes a bit selfish, I must admit that, although I am a woman, I have never had the urge or desire to be a mother perhaps my biological clock is broken! Nevertheless, I can understand to some degree the desperation these characters feel to have a child, when there is no way to have a family the old fashioned way.
Or is there The story has a lot of twists, as I have said previously, but there were also a few surprises too, There is a lot of action and danger, which kept my anxiety levels high, but there is also some lighter moments that brought a smile to my face.
I loved some of the "parenting class" scenes, although I felt for Robyn, as she seemed to have a really hard time with the teaching instructor, When I reached the end of the book, I had a few mixed emotions, I was happy for both Moyer and Robyn, but sad the story ended, I was also left wondering if Moyer managed to find Pandora, but perhaps that will be another story, Who knows I think this would make an intriguing movie or miniseries,

Mark Souza has written a fantastic futuristic thriller, I love his writing style, which is fast paced and flowed wonderfully, This is the author's first full novel and, although I haven't read anything else by this author, he has several anthologies and short stories which I am seriously thinking of reading in the future.


I highly recommend this book if you love Science Fiction, Thrillers or Dystopian genres, Lynn Worton I think perhaps I might've warmed up to this novel more if I were reading it in the autumn or winter, A little dreary for a summer read, and with characters akin to Huxley's Brave New World as in, I wasn't terribly infatuated with anyone, but felt invested enough to stick it out.
I read other reviews of this book before I started that said it wasn't very original and they saw the ending coming, I didn't. I had suspicions about certain things, but in other areas, I liked the twists the author added, Yes, it's a dystopian so there's the big, bad government that you know the hero is going to fight, But if the author removed that, it wouldn't be a dystopian, So I felt that given the constraints placed on it by genre, the book was original,

What I liked most about this story was that I could see this society actually arising from oursnet chips so that people can surf the internet in their mind, productivity quotas, cloning gone wrong.
The world the author built felt like the one we could be headed for if we're not careful, It made me want to recommend it to other people for that reason alone, just so we could talk about it afterward,

My biggest annoyance was that this book needed a good proofread, There were still errors that should have been caught, The book started out pretty slow and I was tempted to put it down, I'm glad I didn't though as it gets pretty good later on, There are definite shades of Blade Runner and Fahrenheitto the story,

Major corporations dictate every aspect of the lives of average people, You don't really have a way to think for yourself since you are connected constantly to the net, In fact, its illegal to think independently, There are of course some that would like to change that not being happy with the status quo, I could see myself wanting shake everything up also, As uncomfortable and disquieting as it is, this book really made me think, For one thing, the basic plot starts off with this allconsuming need to procreate, . . and I don't have a bone in my body telling me I need to have kids never have, that's why I don't, Because of the way procreation is handled in Souza's postapocalyptic for lack of a better term world, this need pervades every single part of the character's lives.
Those who are parents or have that desire to be parents won't have such a difficult time identifying with that part of the book, methinks, though the opposite view is represented as well sort of.
And the whole thing is, . . well, I really can't say more than that without spoiling the tension that builds while

you're reading, so you'll have to just read it,

The other part of this book that really shook me to the core was the societal setup, and the way people just accepted it, even if they didn't particularly like it, for a good portion of the book.
I kept screaming in my head, "Leave! Just leave! Why do you stay!" As an extremely independent individual, I was completely unnerved at the thought that perhaps there was really no where else to go, and that the existence described was all there was.
Which made me okay with other parts of the book I normally wouldn't have been, Funny how the mind works, isn't it But that's exactly what would happen in Souza's world, so it was spot on, as much as it made me itch.


To make a rather vague review even more vague, hard and harder choices are at the heart of this book, There often are no "good" choices in the lives of these people, and so they have to do as well as they can within exceedingly tight boundaries, even at the end.
As usual, Souza does a great job of keeping his characters authentic all the way through, and really that's a big part of what makes it easy to slip into their heads and see the journey as they see it, feeling what they feel.


This should be required reading for everyone, IMO, It's not your average twohour escape fest, but rather a complex and terrifying prediction of how our world could be someday if we align everything just right.
Or wrong, as the case may be,

As a point of disclaimer: I've been a fan of Mark's work for awhile now and while I don't know him all that well, I do enjoy chatting with him from time to time.

Very, which is referenced in the book, OK. I would like to see a sequel to find out what happens to the characters, Moyer Winfield wants more than anything to make his wife, Robyn, happy, All she wants is a baby, Unfortunately, we learn that the Winfields, as well as the rest of Mark Souzas dystopian world, is infertile, Their only hope for having a child is to pay a small fortune to HoganPerkoa company that not only clones children, but seems to have their hands in everything else, too.


I found the future in Robyns Egg to be both fascinating and terrifying, The technology that allows the population to be constantly wired in, cloning children and manipulating their DNA, rehabilitation that borders on lobotomy, and big business playing Godare but a few of the themes that piqued my interest.


Even though Mark Souza introduces you to a lot of ideas and technology, its not overwhelming, Its surprisingly easy to read while also bringing human emotion to the surfaceyoure always aware of how much Robyn Winfield wants a baby, A lot.

What I loved: This may be mean, but I absolutely loved Robyns desperation, She wants a child so badyou can feel it in your gut, She is so strongly driven by this want that she will do anything to make it a reality, Call me sick if you will, but I love an obsession, and that girl is past the point of no return, Its so well written that you cant help but long for that child alongside her,

I also love the literary references, Even though most books are illegal, Moyer is able to block his feed and read whatever he wants, and he has great taste in literature, Im not surprised that books are illegal in this future of theirs, After all, knowledge is power and HoganPerko wants to stay at the top of the food chain,

What I didnt love: I felt like Robyn stole the show, while Moyer seemed to vanish at times, This may have been intended to further strengthen that obsession or to show Moyers drive to make her happy, or it could be that I just related to Robyn more than Moyer.
Regardless, this was his story and at times he seemed invisible,

There were a few places I felt the story dragging ona few scenes could have been shorter, but overall the pace was good and I stayed interested and reading.
Im not sure that the ending really answered all of my questions, but thats a good thingitll leave me thinking about the story long after Ive read it.


Overall: I really enjoyed it, The similarities between our world and the one Mark Souzas created in Robyns Egg are also both fascinating and terrifyingmostly terrifying, I like to think todays dystopian novels are like tomorrows Aesops Fables, so lets play nice, mind our own business, and eat our vegetables,

originally reviewed at EasilyMused, com.