Title: Nanovision
Author: Paul Harry
Genre: YA Science fiction / Fantasy
Age Group: Young Adult
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Daniel Raye was only sixteen when he walked in on a mob hit against his father. Brutally beaten and left for dead, Daniel awakens in a hospital to find himself blind and with no memory of the hit. Placed in the FBI’s witness protection program, Daniel is relocated to Northern California where he’s given residence with a long, lost Aunt who runs a bio-tech firm called NanoBytes. Over time, Daniel rebuilds his life and adapts well to his newfound family, but as fate would have it, comes under the scrutiny of the mob once again–but not before his Aunt finds a cure for his blindness. Using a radical untested procedure incorporating robotic nanites spliced with the DNA from animals and insects, Daniel is injected with a serum that only a mad scientist could create.
Does it work?
Better than anyone imagined.
What would you do with x-ray vision?
Nanovision is an intriguing, engaging YA novel mixing science fiction and fantasy. The book starts out with sixteen-year-old Daniel Raye coming home from school at the final day of the year, ready for the summer holidays. Unfortunately nothing goes as planned. Some hit men are after his dad, and when they notice Daniel, they start beating him up too, and leave him for dead.
Daniel wakes up in the hospital, blind, and with no memory of what happened. He’s put in the witness protection program by the FBI and moves to California to live with an aunt he’s never met, Ethyl. She runs a bio-tech firm called NanoBytes, and does everything she can to cure Daniel’s blindness. She feels sorry for the boy and grows very fond of him. One of her experiments works, using DNA from animals and insects. The experiment works a little too well even, because Daniel gets x-ray vision. And when the mob is on his heels again, his new ability may save his life.
The book starts with a bang, and it keeps a fast pace until the end. The story is imaginative, the characters are engaging. I particularly liked Daniel, and Ethyl, and their relationship. The book managed to surprise me a few times with twists I didn’t see coming.
The only thing I’d have to mention is the editing. I didn’t notice any glaring errors, but we do get the usual pitfalls: showing instead of telling, not using ‘said’ but rather a plethora of other words, like ‘apologized’, ‘acknowledged’, ‘observed’, and so on. It was a little distracting, but still, I enjoyed the story, and the author obviously has a talent for storytelling.
I happy to hear that you enjoyed the story!