THE GOD VIRUS

In this debut novel, a young, bright, and good-looking creative worker at a video game company copes with New York City after a recent breakup.

Depressed, pressured by his bosses at Enigmatic Adventures, and alone except for his cat, Norton, Derek Evans decides to sign up for a medical study of a new antidepressant pill. But it seems that the study is fraudulent, conducted by a dubious figure named Harry Pembroke, who is murdered right after Derek ingests the drug. And as Derek tries to return to his everyday life, taking an interest in his lovely co-worker Allie “G” Giancana, the “God Virus” concealed in the experimental medicine takes hold in his DNA. As his DNA is altered, Derek finds himself changing in incredible ways—out-of-body experiences, telepathy, and more all become regular occurrences as his ordinary humanity is replaced with extraordinary new skills. Allie becomes infected with the “God Virus” through contact with Derek, and they both discover that Pembroke was killed by dangerous people in the underworld and intelligence communities who want these new abilities only for themselves. The easiest way to steal these powers is to extract them from Derek’s and Allie’s brains by force—but that won’t be easy now that they are superhuman. The conflict escalates and more and greater cosmic (and sometimes comic) revelations await on every page. Somewhat picaresque, with hints of Tom Robbins here and there, Voyager’s tale is fast-paced and has many entertaining moving parts. The characters and dialogue are fun despite being somewhat glib. While the subject matter will be recognizable to anyone exposed to “self-actualization” belief systems, this does not ultimately detract from the action in the story. But Voyager sometimes indulges in mystically tweaking the reader (“Lying against a dune, Derek and Allie lounged in the sand, wordlessly chatted, and ate”). And connections between the New Age idea of “indigo children”—“becoming indigo” in the novel—and the author’s pseudonym can be overly direct.

An energetic but familiar New Age sci-fi/fantasy adventure.