In The Void Protocol, New York Times bestselling author F. Paul Wilson concludes his medical thriller trilogy featuring Rick Hayden and Laura Fanning as they confront the entities responsible for the supernatural events of Panacea and The God Gene.Something sits in a bunker lab buried fifty feet below the grounds of Lakehurst Naval Air Station.The product of the Lange-Tür technology confiscated … Station.
The product of the Lange-Tür technology confiscated from the Germans after World War II occupies a chamber of steel-reinforced ballistic glass. Despite experimentation for nearly three-quarters of a century, no one knows what it is, but illegal human research reveals what it can do. Humans with special abilities have been secretly collected—abilities that can only have come from whatever occupies the underground bunker in Lakehurst.
And so it sits, sequestered on the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, slowly changing the world.
F. Paul Wilson is the winner of the Career Achievement in Thriller Fiction in the 2017 RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Awards
The ICE Sequence
#1 Panacea
#2 The God Gene
#3 The Void Protocol
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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There’s definitely something to be said about binge reading a series or trilogy. It helps to remember all those small things that connect the books in the series. Plus, it makes for a grander finale when it occurs. Rather than building up for just one book, the finale covers elements from all the books in the trilogy. Characters also get that much more time to develop and change. Unfortunately, too many authors that I read and follow are doing trilogies or shared worlds that I would trap myself to be reading three, maybe four different authors in a year if I tried to do this regularly. Hell, I have six or seven Hap and Leonard books on my to be read pile so I would get “stuck” reading Joe R. Lansdale for a while. (There are way worse fates than that though.) But I am digressing big time. THE VOID PROTOCOL.
The story continues to follow Rick and Laura and their adventures into the strange and unknown. This time rather than traveling the globe, the adventure is in their own backyard. Clayton Stahlman is collecting people who have been touched with various strange powers. As they protect and investigate the people, Rick and Laura discover the source of the powers: an ICE, Intrusive Cosmic Entity. Even though by the end of the book, everything is tied up nicely, the metaphorical door is still there and able to be opened for more adventures.
There was a lot that I really liked about this book. First off, it didn’t follow the same rhythm or pattern of the previous books in the trilogy. While there were clues to follow along with a mystery, our intrepid heroes seemed to be more along for the ride than the ones controlling the direction. This made for a nice break during my binge through the trilogy. And I don’t remember whether it was THE GOD GENE or THE VOID PROTOCOL but the words Secret History were used by the characters; I geeked out a bit at having the story firmly implanted within Repairman Jack’s world. I was a little sad that this was the end, but I was more excited about what the future could hold. It would be super easy for Wilson to bring Rick and Laura further into Repairman Jack’s world and start providing a different explanation for what happened in NIGHTWORLD. With the limited experiences he has had, Rick’s view of a Cosmic Entity making a change and then watching for the results over years would be an alternate version of the battle between the Otherness and the Ally. Imagine Rick and Laura running into the Lady and her dog. Imagine if “Mother Earth” had to recruit Rick and Laura for a side job that needed to be completed in order to help Repairman Jack complete his primary job of confronting The Adversary. Imagine we see and experience the world after NIGHTWORLD but instead of seeing it through Jack’s eyes, we see it through Rick and Laura. Or Wilson can keep it simpler and just give us another trilogy with only minor hooks to the Secret History. Any of those options sound great to me and I would join in the adventure.