cover image Safari

Safari

Alexander Plansky. Meq Media, $9.99 trade paper (232p) ISBN 978-0-9992399-0-2

Michael Crichton fans will appreciate Plansky’s suspenseful homage to Jurassic Park. Sydney Marlowe receives what seems to be the opportunity of a lifetime when she becomes one of four interns selected to work as field researchers for two weeks for SansCorp, a leading bioengineering company run by reclusive multimillionaire William Sans. At Sans’s private game reserve in Tanzania, bordering the Serengeti National Park, Sydney and her three colleagues, whose duties include injecting animals with advanced tracking chips, are surprised to learn from their employer that all the animals on his property—including elephants, wildebeests, and lions—are clones. Then, on an outing to tag some wildebeest, her group finds the eviscerated corpses of seven antelopes, seemingly killed by an unknown predator. After that grim discovery, Sydney’s time at the Sans reserve only becomes more hazardous. While Plansky doesn’t present the science as plausibly as Crichton, the fast pacing and the author’s willingness to not pull punches will make science fiction thriller devotees eager for more of his work. (BookLife)