Customer Reviews

Cimmerian City

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cimmerian City

By: Rae Lindley

Raven Blackheart was a girl with a quick temper who could take care of herself. Then her world changed forever. Witnessing the death of her significant other, and being murdered was a bad start. Then she finds herself living in a desperate future, nothing but a pawn of Tech Corporation, one of the factions who want to control the earth. She doesn't know if there is anyone left she can trust. A job that forces her to assassinate the vampire-like Dracins, another race Tech Corp sees as the competition makes her uncertain if she has a good reason to live.

Russell Li had been a part of that monster corporation controlling Raven's existence. He walked away when he saw the truth of what was coming. Now he must help Raven realize her mission and her boss, Tyler Deamond, aren't what they seem. She must learn to control her rage if she is to survive and keep her sanity. He finds her a teacher, and through those lessons, a new reason to fight emerges in Raven's life. The question is what will she lose while she tries to help save her world?

This book about an alternative reality fascinates because it is so believable. Dealing candidly with issues like racism, corruption, betrayal, and what we build our dreams on, Rae Lindley writes with a very dark edge. This urban fantasy frightens and makes you think as you read. In Raven we have a flawed heroine, conflicted, confused, and struggling to make sense of the unthinkable. Those very flaws make the reader root for her as she searches for the bitter truth. A complex setting, dozens of intriguing secondary characters, and the possibility of love among the ruins of a future earth make this a book you don't put down. As the first of a series, Cimmerian City holds the promise of a dangerous future, and books that leave us wanting more.

For many years, we have heard how scientists have been able to clone sheep, but who knows what other things they are capable of doing? How often have you considered being a tester for a new drug? You know nothing of the side effects or the real truth behind the making of the drug, just what you have been told. You might not want to try anything again after reading Rae Lindley's Cimmerian City Book 1 In The Cimmerian Series.

The year is 2010, Raven Blackheart has awakened from a serious battle that almost cost her, her life, but thanks to a mysterious person, she is saved. Raven notices that so much has taken place over the years when she was asleep. The most noticeable change is the vampire-like creatures walking among the humans. Dracins are the products of a pharmaceutical experiment, gone bad.

Raven begins working for the Tech Corporation. Tyler Deamond thinks that Raven can serve as a mediator between the humans and the Dracins, and restore peace between the two species. The number of deaths begins to increase and Raven realizes someone is out for more than they are telling.

Cimmerian City is a great look at what the future may possibly entail. This sci-fi read would be a great movie or television series. It has some great action scenes and the characters are revealed slowly, which adds a bit of mystery to the storyline. It kept me wanting to know more, causing me to read until I had completed it. Lindley created an action-packed, fast-paced, new world in this series. I recommend it to readers who love sci-fi.

Jennifer Coissiere
APOOO BookClub

Raven Blackheart and her boyfriend are viciously attacked, while walking the streets one night. As Raven's boyfriend dies in front her, she is next to be stabbed. But 10 years later, Raven wakes up. And she's no longer the same person she once was. The people who found her dying, saved her by changing her into a hybrid. Now, Raven is half human and half Dracin, a vampire-like race. There has been a war brewing between the two races. And Tech Corporation is hoping to use Raven to gain the upper hand.

This is the first in a series planned by Lindley, and Raven's changed nature isn't fully explored yet. But this is a fairly short book, and we mostly just watch as Raven tries to get a handle on the changes not only in her but in the world around her. With a bit of espionage and mystery, Cimmerian City is a short, fun read absent of the violence, gore, and heavy romance that many vampire novels seem to spout.

Raven Blackheart was your average 23 year old college student, but lately her grades had been suffering. She would soon find out that there were worse things in life than failing grades. How about being attacked by fanged creatures and watching the man you love, die right before her eyes.

The year is 2010 and Raven wakes after being asleep for the past ten years after the attack. She learns from Tyler Deamond, Vice President of the Tech Corp., the company that has watched her while she slept; that she was now a hybrid. Mixed with the Dracins and her human race. A Dracin is a blood drinking day walking human experiment. They were enhanced to have tougher skin and be able to survive better than regular humans in 1989.

Deamond convinces Raven the Dracins were the ones that killed her boyfriend Jack. He in turn used her as a killing machine going after all the Dracins he saw as a threat to disrupt his plans to take humans and Dracins Offworld in hopes of making peace between the races...or at least that was his excuse.

Raven then meets up with a man called Russell and another called Enos; both were former employees of Tech Corp. They helped her see Deamond's true intentions and were her only friends in his new world. Feelings were developing between Russell and Raven, and in the end would she find out how close Enos actually was to her. Growing up without a family, she is about to make a startling discovery.

Cimmerian City is the first book in the Cimmerian Series, the cover is eye catching while the words inside the cover are enthralling. Ms. Lindley creates a whole new world with her sci-fi characters that is all too real. The details and events are written by the skilled hands of an author who knows how to addict the reader. I will be sure to follow the upcoming books in the series. 5 Hearts

Cimmerian City is a scifi thriller that is worth the read! Rae Lindley presents us with Raven Blackheart, an unsuspecting college student who dies and ends up as an agent for the tech corp when she awakens in another time. She is drafted as a liaison by the Tech Corp to unify the Humans and the Dracins. Set in the 21st century, Raven must now contend with her new life and her new purpose.

Rae Lindley has done a great job in a genre that rarely sees African American writers. She is a new voice that should be heard. Cimmerian City is the first in the Cimmerian Series. A great start for this author!

Tamara Grant
Literary Lovers Book Club ATL

The pollution is so heavy the galaxy cannot be seen. It is always gloomy with a lot of rain. The earth is being trashed by the corporations that run it in place of non-existent governments. In an attempt to reverse some of the effects of pollution and global warming on humans, a pharmaceutical company has injected many humans with an experimental drug. But it did not produce the desired results, such as the ability to live in the polluted world; instead, it produced modern day vampires; Dracins, which neither sunlight nor garlic can destroy. Raven Blackheart wakes up, on the side of the corporations. She is a combination of Human and Dracin and is sponsored by the head of the corporation who is attempting to move to another, cleaner planet. But is she really on his side or is she more interested in stopping the world war being waged between the Humans and the Dracins? In a vampire/human confrontation, she lost her lover and best friend when he was stabbed and now she is wandering, lonesome and spiritually lost. Will Raven be able to find herself and a new love?

CIMMERIAN CITY by Rae Lindley is very appropriate for a world where corporations and pharmaceutical companies seem to be pushing for control of governments and the world, for money. Presently, drugs hit the market only to be recalled when the horrific side effects cause injury or death, yet in our drug controlled world. Yet people seem to be willing to try any new drug that comes out. Recently, global warming has become a central issue to human survival. As Raven Blackheart travels through Los Angeles, we can feel both sympathy and empathy for her plight. It seems she is in a no-win situation. It is also frightening because it is so close to home. CIMMERIAN CITY ends leaving a taste for more of this new world information. Perhaps there will be a sequel.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

The year is 1999. Raven Blackheart, a twenty-three year-old college student, struggles to make her own way in the world. Uncertain of what lies before her, the only constant in her life is the wonderful Jack Trent, love of her life and steady supporter throughout all the tough times. Regardless of the difficulty of the many unknowns in her life, the strength of Jack's love for her keeps Raven afloat in the midst of life's tumultuous storms...

All that changes in a flash one night, though, as Jack and Raven are ambushed by two villainous creatures in a remote, dark alley. Quickly overpowered and cut off from any outside assistance, Raven and Jack's fates are soon sealed. Powerless as she watches their assailants quickly dispatch of Jack before her own eyes, Raven suddenly - and tragically - abandons her will to live, and refuses to put up a fight of her own when the cold steel blade plunges deeply into her chest...

One might think that's the end of the story - but it's only the beginning: Raven awakens ten years into the future at the behest of the Tech Corporation, a company that has resurrected her as part of a special project conducted to gain advantage in what has become an ongoing war between the races. Two races, in fact: the normal human race and the Dracins, an emergent mutant species that threatens to wipe the face of humanity off the globe - and whose members were responsible for her and Jack's death. After being brought up to speed about the invaluable wages of war currently at stake, Raven is released into greater society, supposedly to fight the good fight for the sake of restoring peace, goodwill, and order...

She soon discovers, though, that not all is as it appears: governments have been replaced by corporations, which means nothing matters more than the bottom line. With this contention comes competition - and, as Raven wends her way through a series of killings, cover-ups, and intrigue, she learns the real truth about why she was brought back to fight - and exactly who & what she's fighting for...

Cimmerian City is a clever, engaging tale with all the trappings of a thriller at its finest. Much like "The Matrix" before it, Lindley's tale does an excellent job of enshrouding the truth within a tapestry of well-constructed lies, forcing you to keep questioning every new development until you finally understand the significance of what lies at the core. With a rich cast of compelling characters and enough action to keep you checking your pulse, this story of deceit, greed, treachery, and ultimate redemption deserves to take its rightful place alongside the best that Tom Clancy or James Patterson could ever offer.

Beneath it all, though, Cimmerian City is a classic tale of the underdog at his/her finest, leaving you no choice but to root for Raven throughout all her many battles against foes of all sizes - recognizing your own daily struggles as they play themselves out in her life before your very eyes. In this day and age of unchecked multi-conglomerate corporate takeovers, Lindley's narrative should serve as a wake-up call to us all that the possibility of such a controlled future in our own time may not be so far-fetched...