Ratings1
Average rating4
The first three books in #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Richard Bard's Brainrush series garnered over 2,000 Amazon 5-Star reviews, setting the stage for the continuing story spanning three continents and two more books. With "Brainchild" (Brainrush 4) called "a high-speed thriller that ignites pages with scenes of action and suspense" by Kirkus Reviews, and "Smoke & Mirrors" (Brainrush 5) named "best book of the year" by IndieReader.com, this mind-gripping adventure is sure to capture the imagination long after the final heart-stopping chapter. In Amsterdam, a visionary scientist is laying the groundwork for a cybernetic life-extension project that will transfer individual consciousness to a personalized avatar. Halfway around the world, his brilliant grandson is secretly planning to use the same technology to infiltrate the world's most secure networks. But the scientific advances necessary to perfect the brain-to-computer interface are slow in coming, too slow for the aging founder of the Everlast foundation-who may die before realizing his dream of immortality-and too slow for his ruthless grandson, who will stop at nothing to attain the recognition that is his birthright. Caught in the middle are Jake Bronson and his seven-year-old son, Alex, whose combined mental gifts might provide the key to leapfrogging the impasse. When Jake's family and closest friends are simultaneously abducted in a globally coordinated kidnapping scheme, he races across two continents before uncovering the first clue to their whereabouts, unaware that his hostage son and teenage siblings crash-landed in the jungles of South China, where they must find every ounce of their courage and wits to survive the wilds and escape the ruthless drug lord who is hot on their heels. Can a seven-year-old boy learn to kill to save his family? Note: "Brainchild" was formerly entitled "Everlast"
Reviews with the most likes.
Good But Incomplete. As with any of the books in this series after BRAINRUSH, read the earlier books first. That said, the author introduces some new writing techniques into this book that are a refreshing change of pace, and that is most welcome. HOWEVER, the reason I dinged this book a star is because it feels like the author took one story and broke it into two - similar to how Hollywood did a lot of book to movie adaptations there for a while with the last book, except obviously here this is an author himself doing it to his own book. Yes, the combined single book of this one and the next one would have likely gone over the 600 page mark, and maybe the author didn't think that would sell as well or some such. But this feels like a money grab, even with the solid story, with the splitting into halves.
All of that said, there is more peril than ever built into this book, though the peril in this tale is more personal (vs the last book's more global scale).
If you've gotten this far in the series, you won't be disappointed with the story here - and you'll be reaching for the next one as soon as you've finished this one!
Series
7 primary booksBrainrush is a 7-book series with 7 primary works first released in 2010 with contributions by Richard Bard.
Series
2 primary booksThe Everlast Duology is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2014 with contributions by Richard Bard.