Book Review: The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry

In an undisclosed laboratory, a man adjusts digital clock -- the Extinction Clock -- and starts the timer. Within one week -- the amount of time displayed on the clock -- the world could change forever. Unless Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences can get to them first, that is. But Joe and the DMS have quite a task ahead of them, and their foes -- two teams of genetic researchers, one bent on creating genetically enhanced armies for the highest bidder, and the other resurrecting Josef Mengele's Nazi Master Race program -- will do whatever it takes to stop them.

As with his prior Joe Ledger novel, Patient Zero, the chapters are short and begin with a time signature or the countdown on the Extinction Clock. The short length provides enough to whet the appetite, but the countdown and time signatures add to the anticipation. When the story jumped back in time to show the progress of the genetics teams, I never felt lost or jolted from the continuity of the main action.As a reader, I wanted to know what was going to happen, but the time spurred me on, tossing me into the frenetic frame of mind of Joe and the DMS trying to stop something before the deadline hits and all Hell breaks loose.

The story itself is quite fantastic, filled with a great mixture of adventure and science fiction that takes the end-of-the world scenario to another level: clones, gene manipulation to create targeted diseases, Joe and the DMS battling half-dog/half-scorpion creations know as "Stingers" and Berzerkers (genetically engineered warriors that put the Hulk to shame). Plus, the characters themselves are terrific creations: Joe Ledger, a hard-edged former police officer who questions himself and the ways of the world, even when he falls into an ill-advised romance; the mysterious Mr. Church who runs the DMS and seems unflappable, but still shows a human side -- albeit very brief; Cyrus Jakoby and Otto Wirths, villains through and through, who can see nothing beyond their vision of a perfect world, even when it pertains to Jakoby's offspring; Paris and Hecate Jakoby, or the "Young Gods" as Cyrus refers to them, genetically perfect, almost pure evil and full of schemes at odds with their father.

The Dragon Factory offers a fast-paced story that won't allow you to put it down once you begin. Great stuff here!

Image from Jonathan Maberry's Big, Scary Blog.


The Dragon Factory
by Jonathan Maberry
St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 978-0-312-38249-0
Softcover, 486p

Book received free from publisher via LibraryThing.