Beyond Eden by J.M. Morgan

BEYOND EDEN: AN ECOLOGICAL THRILLER AUTHOR: J.M. MORGAN ISBN: 1-55817-602-0 PINNACLE BOOKS (April 1992) Desert Eden Trilogy

BACK COVER:

GENESISIt is the year 2017 and the earth's population has been virtually wiped out by plague. Other than the few who carried a natural immunity to the deadly virus, the only remaining humans are the handful of scientists who had entered the sealed dome of Biosphere Seven, a living laboratory in the high Texas desert. For twenty years, the scientists have not dared leave their sterile prison, but their children have grown restless inside the security of its stifling walls.

EXODUSBrilliant but unsettled, this second generation of Biosphere Seven is eager to explore and claim the new wilderness, and meet the Outsiders beyond their sphere. But if they leave the comfort and safety of Eden, will they find adventure... or death?

GENESISJessica Nathan - She is the team leader, struggling with an uncertain future, and torn between her duty and an old passion.

Cameron Nathan - Jessica's headstrong son will pay any price, even his love for a beautiful girl, for the freedom beyond Biosphere.

Jonathan Katelo - He and his brother Seth dare to leave the green valleys of Montana to seek mankind's mythical last city.

Josiah Gray Wolf - Leading the Outsiders, a new tribe of survivors who live near Biosphere, he struggles against humanity's old mistakes.

BEYOND EDENOutside the cage of glass and steel, a brave new world beckons...

My Opinion Is...

Hmm... I'm not quite sure. I don't know.

It's 2018, pretty much twenty years after the virus had pretty much killed everyone except for a handful. It begins with John Katelo's family. Two of his oldest sons have decided they must head south to find wives.

Then you're taken to Biosphere Seven where you find out that there's more than a dozen new kids that have been born due to a genetic breeding system that the adults have set up to prevent inbreeding. Jessica is pretty much crumbling away, wondering if they made a huge mistake of creating all these new lives. She's viewing Biosphere Seven more and more as an eggshell. Just one little crack and they all will die.

The Outsiders don't seem to live near the dome nor do much interacting with the people inside the dome. They also went on to have children even though some have died a few days later after birth due to the virus. Around this point, you can tell that its getting more and more spiritual. Something traumatizing happens to Josiah Grey Wolf's daughter and she's now a "Spirit Woman" (Witch) who can't help but scare everybody with things that she can 'see' or 'know' that no one else can know.

Halfway through the book, you're sent all the way to Africa to follow the life of a man named Zechariah from birth to childhood to starting out on a journey. Zechar, as he is known, seems to be totally driven by a vision to unite all the people of Earth under one nation. How that can possibly be achieved, the book doesn't touch on that. That's something that most likely will unfold in "FUTURE EDEN". I didn't really find myself caring about Zechar or anything to do with him.

Katelo's sons find their way to the Outsiders where they are welcomed. More things happen. More time passes. Lives are lost. Lives are born. People have to face up to all the risks they took, etc etc etc...

I didn't hate the book but I didn't love it. I don't know if I even liked it. It was okay. I loved 'Desert Eden' but maybe this book is slow because everything is trying to build up to 'Future Eden'? I'll find out pretty soon.