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T.J. Zakreski

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The Cygnus Virus Kindle Edition

by T.J. Zakreski (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 11 ratings

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“In a story that’s part William Gibson-style cyberthriller, part wacky comedy, the pendulum swings between an investigation of the human soul and off-color remarks …” – Kirkus Reviews

“T.J. Zakreski’s THE CYGNUS VIRUS is at times a very consciously literate and literary book, drawing its inspiration from such sources as Carl Jung, the rise of Nazism, and even the Tarot deck to string together its elaborate metaphorical schema.” – IndieReader

“I'm not just throwing out the whole late PKD vibe on a whim, here. There's a lot of cool stuff going on here that should appeal to all fans, including the paranoia, the religious freaks, the heavy mix of technology and mysticism, time travel, universe building, and Good and Evil.” – Brad K. Horner, book reviewer

Andron’s life goes into full wtf mode when he accidentally downloads a space virus, after enrolling his old computer in a SETI-like program.

A virus that crashes the entire Internet. A virus that has a name. It’s Cygnus, a foulmouthed digital pest, who was expelled from a dystopian planet Earth.

And it only gets worse.

Cygnus strong-arms Andron into doing his dirty work. But, goes too far when someone winds up dead. That’s when Andron discovers Cygnus’ shocking plan.

A plan to hijack a human cloning trial using blood from a burial cloth, so that he can come back as Terra's Jesus.

Andron comes to the only conclusion he can. That he has to stop this psychopath.

But, how does he stop a digital god who’s holding all the cards?

What if the only person who can help him, can’t decide if she hates him, or just thinks he's nuts?

The birth’s about to go down in Bathsheba and Andron’s bringing a gun.

This is the story of rum, tarot cards, eternal recurrence and a Second Coming that you won't see coming.

The Cygnus Virus, is the first book of a planned trilogy. Lysandra and the Spear of Destiny, is due out in 2017, followed by The Mayflower.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Terry J. Zakreski, Q.C. is a seasoned lawyer by day and bangs out science fiction by night. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with his wife, daughter and four yappy dogs. He also teaches a university night class in trial advocacy.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B077WGKKYQ
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1801 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #2,862,300 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #5,496 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #10,078 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)
- #11,955 in First Contact Science Fiction eBooks

Customer Reviews:
4.0 11 ratings

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T.J. Zakreski

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Terry J. Zakreski, Q.C. is a seasoned lawyer by day and bangs out science fiction by night.

He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with his wife, daughter and four yappy dogs.

He also teaches a university night class in trial advocacy.

The Cygnus Virus is his first book in a trilogy. The soon-to-be-released Lysandra is the second. Work is underway on The Mayflower. An interesting tidbit about The Cygnus Virus. He wrote the entire first draft as a very long text on his iPhone. After a thousand edits and ten complete rewrites, he decided to start his second book more conventionally on his laptop.

While this is his first foray into fiction, dialogue from his defence of, and Supreme Court of Canada appearance for, Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser against Monsanto over GMO seeds, is featured in the reality play Seeds and the story inspired the movie Percy, presently in production.

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Amazon Customer

Fascinating writing

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2016

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Mr. Zakreski's writing style seems influenced by the English-language cyberpunk biggies (Stephenson and Doctorow); unlike those influences, he creates characters that don't fit the comfortable narrative of cyberpunk "doers" - his protagonist is a thinker, a worrywart, and surprisingly gritty for a mild-mannered person. Mr. Zakreski knows how to steer a plot bend and drop a bombshell, and weaves uncanniness of social norms and alt reality which adds enough background noise to keep the reader engaged. I'm looking forward to more!

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Yzabel

I couldn’t decide whether I somewhat liked it, or if it just wasn’t for me

Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2016

[NOTE: I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

This is rather an oddball. I couldn’t decide whether I somewhat liked it, or if it just wasn’t for me. So in the end, I guess I’m going with a “meh” rating.

This story comes with a blend of crazy sci-fi, people encoding themselves in virtual space, cloning experiments, and religious fanaticism. The parallels with our world are not only obvious but totally on purpose and often played for laughs (the Holy Cloth, lawyer jokes, and so on). This was for the most part enjoyable, and provided for a background that was both unknown but easy to understand.

The “Cygnus Virus” is also, let’s be honest, a troll, and in a way, it was fun to read about (well, provided one doesn’t squirm at the prospect of porn-bombing descriptions and e-mails containing goat pictures and the likes). Not a very “pleasant” character, for sure, and one that struck me as more immature than anything else, not to mention the bleak surroundings and situations he created for Andron and others; still, that cloning project was both hilarious and genius, when you think about it (imagine injecting a /b/-level troll into the cloned body of the next Messiah… yeah, Charlie-Foxtrot much?). OK, it’s vulgar. The Berlin sim had a vulgar side, too, however at the same time it foreshadowed the kind of decision Andron would probably have to make later, and that was interesting. And he tries, the poor guy, doing the best he can with what he has.

And the ending. Cosmic irony to the power of ten. I liked that.

On the other hand… the present tense narration just grated on my nerves from beginning to end—I think this is part of the reason why I never warmed up to the book in general. In some cases, it works, in others it fails.

Moreover, I think the story could’ve gone a bit further in Andron’s motivations and/or Cygnus’s behaviour. Considering the blurb, I expected Andron to be more ruthless, and conversely, Cygnus was more like a kid throwing a tantrum, which was fun, but dampened the potential for Evil he was bringing to Terra.

Conclusion: I liked most of the story’s themes, even though it could’ve done with less sex-troll material and with more seriously-evil instead, but the narrative tense and the outcome (and outlook on life) of some of the characters were perhaps a bit too… well, too b leak to my liking.

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2016

Wonderfully inventive!

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Brett

It’s like a book about fictional science stuff

Reviewed in Canada on July 28, 2022

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The author really gets what it means to write a story that screams to be read.

Decano

Creative and talented writer's first foray

Reviewed in Canada on July 11, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is an engaging read. Different storylines and themes quite effortlessly weave together. The feel is of a real talented story teller bursting to throw all kinds of ideas out - sometimes overwhelmingly so. There are all kinds of brilliant writing highlighted as such by some brave attempts at writing about sex - in the most part unnecessarily vulgar. I do appreciate the intelligent approach to Religion, Science, and the Sci Fi genre. This game is worth the candle.

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The Cygnus Virus Kindle Edition

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