Tags
4 stars, alien invasion, cyborgs, Marie Dry, scifi, scifi romance
About Dawn of the Cyborg by Marie Dry
On a future earth, Aurora has been desperately searching for her long-lost sister, when she is sacrificed to Balthazar, leader of the fearsome Cyborgs who invaded Earth. Now she is stuck on an alien spaceship with a crazy Cyborg who thinks she can give him a soul and who has a weird fixation with the way she moves.
Aurora is desperate to return to earth to search for her sister while the President of United Earth insists that only she can save Earth from enslavement by the cyborgs.
After spending time with the cyborgs, Aurora realizes that the machine she thought would be easy to betray, the machine she has to betray, if she ever wants to rescue her sister from enslavement, has turned into a man she could come to love.
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Review of Dawn of the Cyborg
If you are a fan of Marie Dry, perhaps you have read some or all of the Zyrgin Warriors series. This new story, that reads like the beginning of a new series, shares some aspects with Zyrgin Warrior: an alien species that invades earth, shows their superiority and makes demands.
This alien species is actually a cyborg species created by the Tunrian, an alien clone race that enslaved the cyborgs until Balthazar led an uprising. Balthazar now leads a small faction of cyborgs who’s number is barely enough to run the ships they won in the escape from the Tunrians.
Now in Earth space, Balthazar has seen the video where Aurora ran (to save a child from being hit by a car) and became “…the woman who moved like the finest Tunrian music…” Now he is obsessed with her and has convinced himself she is the one that will give him a soul. The concept of a soul is discussed from both the cyborg standpoint and the human standpoint. Each has their own take on the subject as do most readers. It will be interesting to see where they cyborgs take this concept as the story develops.
Balthazar forces the Earth president’s hand and demands he turn Aurora over to him. The president does not seem to have any choice and although shows regret to Aurora, there is a certain ruthlessness that will become more apparent. Does he have to be ruthless? Earth is depicted as a world with no defense against the invaders, so maybe his hard-hearted behavior is to be expected.
Aurora’s desire to find her sister that was left behind when Aurora escaped slavery (on Earth) provides the all-consuming motivation to play the role the president has cast her in – spy and possible assassin. Aurora’s desire to find her sister warps her every move in Balthazar’s world.
Interactions between Aurora and Balthazar are a cross between humorous and dreadful. Balthazar’s lack of knowledge about humans, lack of empathy and lack of emotions make him a dangerous, obnoxious, overbearing alien. Who I did not really like at all in the beginning. And sometimes in the middle and even closer to the end. But he does have his moments and Aurora seems to be able to see right through him.
As an added bit of interest, there is an anomaly on board Balthazar’s ship. Eventually, it leads to a stowaway who will definitely add interest to the story.
Also developing in the (possible?) series is the prospect that there may be other sentient beings headed toward earth. The Tunrians believe that their god Turana scattered souls across the universe and Earth is one of three planets they ended up on. Since the Earth probe Voyager pretty much provided a map to Earth, the cyborgs were able to find it. Which means others might be able to find it. Are they friend or foe? Who knows?
Dawn of the Cyborg is intriguing, dramatic, and poignant. This standalone novel delivers plenty of scifi concepts, tense conflict, action, romance and a look at what it means to have a soul.
The author provided a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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Links
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Giveaway
Don’t forget the ongoing giveaway for the audiobook of Phantom Evil by Heather Graham, or the print books of Catherine Cerveny’s The Rule of Luck and The Chaos of Luck. If you haven’t entered yet, you might be interested to know that commenting on today’s post helps qualify you for an entry – see the giveaway post for all the details. Or go straight to the giveaway….
Whiskey With My Book 
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and review Dawn of the Cyborg Riley. Writing a review is a skill I simply don’t have and I admire those who can, I always feel guilty because I read books and never leave reviews.
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Everyone has their niche. Some people write books, some people review books. You know, I don’t review every book I read. Especially if the book already has 100s of reviews. I just go on to the next book that I might review. 🙂
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Its interesting to hear your criteria for reviewing. What I admire a lot is people writing short stories. I have a hard time with those. Isn’t it wonderful that there are so many cyborg romances out there now. It used to be Laurann Dohner and Eve Langlais and a very few others that wrote those. Now there’s this huge selection to choose from.
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