Review: Tels Will Rule The Future! Are You One of Them?

Soulware

By Paul Black

What a cool book! Soulware by Paul Black is Book Two in the Tels Series, although this book easily stands on its own. In fact, the series is Winner of The Writer’s Digest Book Award for genre fiction. Soulware received the Silver Medal in the Science Fiction category.

And this is indeed a wonderful example of a science fiction novel. It is a story that centers on Jonathan Kortel. He may look like he is human, but he is so much more. He has a telekinetic gift. There are others who have this gift, so many that they have formed a secret group called the Tels. But Jonathan is the most special of that group—and that makes him both the most dangerous as well as the most in danger!

Why? Well, even though Jonathan lives far in our future, greed and the lust for power seems never to go away. A hierarchy has been established within the Tels so that each individual is tested and assigned a grade based upon ability. Abilities, however, are not stagnant, they continued to grow in strength and thus, individuals may “move up” in the hierarchy.

The Biolution also changed the future. At that time, many industries that had been the leaders in the world’s economy were destroyed. The ability to create synthetic oil had not been foreseen by the Middle East and when it happened, a final act of terrorism showed their anger—an untested biothermonuclear weapon totally eliminated what once had been the Hawaiian Islands!

Actually, the Tels had been around since the 1960s and became most influential in changing Khrushchev’s mind about the nuclear missiles in Cuba... But the Tels quickly realized that the power was not political; it was in the corporate sector. American Tels formed an investment front for their activites...

Black does some very strange and fun things that have come about in this Biolution, especially about clothing. Imagine having your clothes actually be alive, molding to your body... or imagine an animal “printed” on that cloth that moves from place to place and even disappears into secret places... You’ll enjoy these flights of imagination as much as I did, I am sure...

Because of their abilities, the Tels are in control of the world now, even if humans don’t actually realize it! But as power corrupts, the Tels split into two rival groups, one of which is called The Agency.

Jonathan had joined The Agency and had worked for quite some time but he was getting to be known and, like those individuals in the old west who were constantly faced with those that wanted to see “who was faster to draw his gun,” there were many who came after Jonathan just to see if his power was indeed...more than they had...

And even Jonathan had begun to wonder just how powerful his abilities had become. He noticed that testing was not being handled the same. And then he learned that he had been genetically implanted with bionanoware...the “lab boys” called it Soulware... But he also knows that his friend received a similar implantation and he was dead now!

Did I not tell you this was a cool book? And Black not only has an expansive imagination, he writes it so effectively that we read it like the newspaper telling how everything is going to be in the future and miss the dangers—almost! Will humans begin to evolve into future Tels? Who knows? But it is certainly fun and exciting to read about the possibilities. Or perhaps, Black writes of the future so well, because he is already one of them...

Science Fiction at its finest...Check it out! You won’t be sorry...



Book Received Via
Science Fiction Reader.Com

G. A. Bixler