gilda_elise

Daley has a problem. Her 26-year life so far has been unconventional, to say the least, but now she's got this voice in her head. It claims to be a separate entity that's going to be sharing her body from now on. At first she thinks she's gone schizophrenic, then considers the possibility that maybe she really has been invaded - but by what? Medical tests turn up nothing, yet the voice persists... and won't stop talking!

When she finally accepts the reality that she has a symbiont, she discovers that together they can cure people of the incurable.

Maybe hosting a symbiont isn't such a bad thing.

She retreats to a remote town in the southwest desert to hone her healing skills. But there she runs afoul of the Pendry clan, leaders of an obscure cult that worships the Visitors who inhabited the area millions of years ago. They plan to bring them back but believe Daley is the prophesied "Duad" who will undo all the cult's efforts. She must be eliminated.

You know things are bad when the voice in your head is the only one you can trust.

Wilson has created a couple of great characters. Daley and Pard, the name she gives to the symbiont, effortlessly play off of each other. While Daley gives Pard a body, he gives her a fresh outlook on her life. Not to mention that of the people they’re able to cure of various diseases.

There are some hints that maybe this is yet another arm of the “Secret History of the World” world. To start with, it’s an update of Wilson’s novel Healer, though the original book is part of his “LaNague Federation series.” But there’s something going on in this book that’s based on Nikola Tesla’s work, so that ties the story to Wardenclyffe. Checking Wilson’s website, it appears that this book is in “Year Zero” of the “Secret History.”

The book end with a cliffhanger, without any mention of this being the first book in a series. Wilson doesn’t make a habit of leaving things up in the air, so I’m hopeful. But he does lose a star because of it. Not cool. Not cool at all.