Infinity Lost by S. Harrison

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Infinity Lost by S. Harrison

Publisher: Skyscape
Publication Date: 11/1/15
Source: received in exchange for honest review
Pages: 235
Buy It: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
In the near future, one corporation, Blackstone Technologies, has changed the world: no disasters, no poverty, and life-altering technology. Blackstone has the impunity to destroy—or create—as it sees fit.
Infinity “Finn” Blackstone is the seventeen-year-old daughter of Blackstone’s reclusive CEO—but she’s never even met him. When disturbing dreams about a past she doesn’t remember begin to torment her, Finn knows there’s only one person who can provide answers: her father.
After Finn and an elite group of peers are invited to Blackstone’s top-secret HQ, Finn realizes she may have a chance to confront her father. But when a highly sophisticated company AI morphs into a killing machine, the trip descends into chaos. Trapped inside shape-shifting walls, Finn and her friends are at the mercy of an all-seeing intelligence that will destroy everything to get to her.
With no hope of help, Finn’s dream-memories may be the only chance of survival. But will she remember in time to save her own life and the lives of those around her? --Goodreads 
Infinity certainly is lost probably because she is involved in some strange situations.

The tale of Infinity Blackstone commences mid-story as teenaged Infinity, or Finn as she prefers to be known, admits to her friend and classmate that she has been having dreams of an altered past.  The chapters jump between Finn at the age of 6, 12/13 and 16/17.  At the age of six, Finn has already lost her mother and seems lost to her father as well.  Her mother died in a crash when Finn was young.  Her mother did not survive and Finn was injured.  It causes the reader to wonder if the accident and loss of her mother is why Finn’s father is no more than a shadow in the night for Finn.  Mr. Blackstone is the head of Blackstone Industries, a large corporation heading innovative fields of technology.  One evening a company meeting is scheduled to take place in the Blackstone household.  Finn’s father is a no show at the last minute, but Finn is still required to go as the meeting participants want to see her.  While there, Finn is poked and prodded and generally treated like she is a victim of human trafficking and the participants want to fully examine the merchandise.  Traumatized by the situation, Infinity seeks revenge.

She is being raised by an odd assortment of characters that the reader is at first led to believe is a nanny, housemaid and some type of security/body guard.  As the story continues, we find that the nanny actually has a PhD and the security guard is former-military who tutors Finn, both still employed by the Blackstone Industries Corporation.  The security guard, referred to as Major by some of the staff, is more of a father figure as he is the one raising Finn.  The doctor nanny hates the girl which in the beginning isn’t a surprise as Infinity was pretty much portrayed as spoiled rotten.  It was an odd mix of incidents and the reader is torn between pity for all Finn suffers and understanding that some things may have brought trouble on herself by her willful actions.  Finn sometimes appears innocent and sometimes perhaps a bit conniving.

As the story progresses, we find that certain treatments Infinity has undergone are not as permanent as the application was considered to be and she is shipped off to boarding school to acquire social skills with her peers under the assumed surname of her body guard tutor to retain her anonymity from her classmates and the general public.  The private school is filled with students with parents of affluence.  Finn’s best friend’s mother turns out to be a rival for Finn’s father’s business, yet this fact is slipped in almost between paragraphs and seems to have no holding on the overall story.  The friend arranges for their school to be the first school ever to have a field trip to Blackstone Industries so that Finn can possibly see her father.

The field trip takes the story into a whole different world and changes the tone of the book dramatically.  The unexpected is the rule and a roller coaster ride of action ensues.  Don’t get me wrong, there are surprises in the story throughout the book, but none are as dramatic and quickly changing as this field trip.  The whole beginning of the book is like idling through the line of a new roller coaster, but then when you get into the coaster cars, finding out it is a launch coaster and you just get blasted away.  That also happens to be how the book ends however. 

Or let me rephrase that, the book doesn’t end.  It just stops…as soon as Finn figures out that she has an alter ego, Infinity, and that she is not human, but an android.  Being an android should be no surprise to the reader however, as the synopsis on the book’s back cover had revealed this fact before the book would even be opened.  To continue the roller coaster ride, you must have the second installment which is Infinity Rises and was just recently released.  I find I must finish the ride, no time for roller coaster breakdowns.  The next installment is already in my shopping cart.



Infinity Lost (11/1/15): 4 stars
Infinity Rises (1/5/16): TBA
Infinity Reborn (TBA): TBA



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