The Fourth Species - A. E. Warren

  I got a hell of a shock when I checked to see if Tomorrow’s Ancestors book 3 had been published. For I saw three unfamiliar titles and I was aghast that I might have missed three new books in the series. How could this have happened?  I’d been checking regularly or so I thought. And then I realised that the first two books in the series had previously been self published but now they’ve been picked up by Del Rey UK the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Penguin and they’ve been given spanking new titles. I relaxed and bought my copy of The Fourth Species.

There’s a comfort in books of the same series. For often your approach to the characters is that of an old friend. I’ve enjoyed all of this series. It works on a number of levels. You can enjoy it simply as a good old sci-fi dystopian yarn. Elise and the gang fighting good against bad, exploring their relationships with each other and even with themselves. If you read this as a standalone I think you’ll probably be eager to read the first two in the series. The full premise is explained in the first book which I believe is now called Subject Twenty One. I don’t really want to give anything away suffice to say that Elise is the main character and continues thus throughout the series looking for the truth and working hard to expose a fractured and flawed regime. The author has created a credible, alternate  society and it’s very easy to become involved in her stories.

But you can scratch beneath the surface and discover some comment perhaps on the morality of science. A look at class systems and how divisive they are. And you can also see how people deal with extreme situations, of poverty and hardship. There is an underlying comment about power and control,  what that can do and about the relationships people have with each other in general - family and friends.

The writing is tight, efficient with a well paced narrative. It’s interesting with a series of books to consider what the reader’s expectation is for the new instalment. And I think that you have to have as wide a vision as the author to know that there will be other books to follow. Perhaps some characters from previous books don’t put in an appearance, other than by name, in this one. But if you’ve invested in the series then you put your trust in the writer to reveal all when the time is right. My understanding is that the next book will be the last in the series. I hope it’s not long to wait!