Book Review | Artificial Evolution (Big Sigma #3) #sff #booksky

Artificial Evolution is the third book in Joseph R Lallo’s Big Sigma series. The previous were Bypass Gemini and Unstable Prototypes. He’s also responsible for the Free-Wrench series, and you know how much I loved that. This is more straight science fiction.

Artificial Evolution (Big Sigma #3)

by Joseph R Lallo

Artificial Evolution is the third book in the Big Sigma series, building upon the story and characters introduced by Bypass Gemini and Unstable Prototypes. Lex, Michella and Squee are once again joined by the mercenaries Silo and Garotte. Along the way they’ll need plenty of help from mad engineer Karter Dee and his AI Ma. 

After butting heads with the megacorporation known as VectorCorp it was only a matter of time before Lex Alexander and his girlfriend Michella Modane would face the consequences. It is remarkable what a single corporate agent with the resources of a multi-global conglomerate can do to a person’s career. In the space of a few days Lex is looking for work and Michella is feeling pressure from the network to ease off the hard-hitting stories. Not one to be silenced, Michella quickly hatches a plan to continue her investigations under the guise of a fluff story about a so-called extraterrestrial, and who better to be her personal driver than Lex? 

Meanwhile, mercenaries Silo and Garotte are still nipping at the heels of the terrorist group known as the Neo-Luddites. Rumors of an attempt to secure a devastating weapon bring the pair to a forgotten little planet in an undeveloped corner of the galaxy. Circumstances require that local authorities lay claim to the terrorists’ apparent target, but what sort of threat could one gangly collection of anatomical curiosities pose to the galaxy? 

The answer to that question will put our heroes to the test and leave a whole world hanging in the balance.

My Review

We started with Garotte and Silo, who I didn’t remember at all, then got onto safer ground with Lex and Michella, (and Squee), before shifting between both story lines until they collided. Frankly, all Joseph R Lallo’s storylines have some wonderful collisions, and this is no exception. After a bit of a stuttery start, I got somewhat fed up with Michella’s continual nagging of Lex, and Lex’s continual whining, and once Michella showed she was more than just a pretty face things started to get really interesting, and I could no longer put the book down.

Mr Lallo writes two things brilliantly – fights (both person to person and object to object, with or without gravity– does that make four things?), and aliens. And these are some of the nastiest, most deadly aliens I’ve seen in a while, although to be fair, I avoid nasty aliens as much as possible. The scifi tech in this series is brilliant, and superbly developed in an inaccessible world. Which world is run by a mad engineer assisted by a superb AI, who puts couples counselling to shame as she gets to grips with Michella.

All in all, a first class romp, only dropping a star because of my irritation with Michella. And Lex, but that was caused by Michella. And because it’s not quite as good as Free-Wrench (but it is different!).