Killing people is just like any other job, really. You wake up in the morning, you put on a pair of boots and get on with it (“it” being a whole host of things ordinary people would find terribly unsavory). Also like any other job, some people are better at assassination than others. And some people were literally made for it. James Islington’s cyberpunk action-thriller Scion follows the best of the best through some of the worst few days of his life.
The good news for Azure, top assassin for the shadowy organization known as the Keres, is that he has a few distinct advantages for his line of work. With his genetic revisions, or “revs,” he’s the perfect instrument of destruction. Somatic revs for speed, cognitive revs to remember minute details, pain revs when he gets injured, all activatable with nothing more than a thought. It wasn’t always like this, though—an explosion, death and guilt. But Azure doesn’t have time to dwell on the past. That is, until one of the wealthiest people on Earth hires him for a protection job rather than a hit. His new charge is an older woman, and she’s asking a lot of questions. Questions about his past, about what he remembers. Keeping her alive might be the only way to find out who Azure really is and who he’s destined to be.
Scion was billed by its publisher as John Wick meets Blade Runner. Such declarations should be taken with a grain of salt, but this story and this protagonist deliver exactly as advertised. Where John Wick is icily proficient and deathly serious, Azure’s snark lends him a warmer, more relaxed attitude, even when you’re not convinced his revs will pull him through the stickiest of situations. As long as we’re mentioning film influences, Spielberg’s Minority Report comes to mind. Azure finds himself running from powerful forces who have made truth a commodity, not unlike Tom Cruise’s John Anderton. Author James Islington (The Will of the Many) also lovingly borrows setting details from the futuristic cities of both Blade Runner and Minority Report, and the shimmering city of Themis is full of gritty, neon-flashing set pieces.
Islington is working on a follow-up to Scion as part of a planned series. With such a multilayered lead character and vibrant sci-fi setting, future installments promise to be just as fun. This book rips along and will be over before you know it. You’ll wish you could activate your memory revs and read it all over again.