The Forever Drug by Steve Perry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This sequel to Spindoc was just as good, if not better, than its predecessor. It was action packed, it read quickly, it was exciting, and it had just enough sci fi in it to justify it as a sci fi novel. Once more, Venture Silk is in the thick of a crazy spy game, this time with his new live-in love, Zia, the master spy. At risk is a new wonder drug concocted on the planet E2, which enables someone taking it to live for 500 or a thousand years or more. As a reward for her achievements on Earth (in the last book), Zia is administered the drug, but Silk is not. Interestingly, one of the side effects is developing telepathy. It makes for some fun scenes. You can tell Perry knows something about guns. Silk is followed and attacked, so he decides to buy a gun, and gets an 8 mm that shoots non-lethal darts. The darts being shot his way, though, are poisoned and quite lethal. A spy is sent from Earth to recover this wonder drug, meanwhile, and decides to take Zia as his prisoner/wife and to reverse engineer the biology of the drugs given her. He also decides to kill Silk and to turn on his handlers and head for another planet to sell the secret of the drug for a king’s ransom, as well as taking it himself so he can live forever — with Zia. Like the first book, there’s a lot of sex in this one, but I was more prepared for it this time and didn’t feel so much like a prude. Although I’ve never seen an author so taken with the term “mons” in my life. I’ve honestly never seen it used in a novel before…. Silk learns to take care of himself in this story, from taking martial arts classes to spying on the spies after him. You see, not only do he and Zia have to watch out for the Earth-based super spy, but other shadowy ones are after them too. It’s explained toward the end of the book, and I have to say that I wasn’t thrilled with the explanation, but I’ll take it anyway because the book was so fun to read. If you haven’t read this series, obviously start with the first one, but read this book because you’ll likely enjoy it. Recommended.
hankrules2011 