Saturday 3 January 2015

Ebook Review: The Hauntings of Playing God



The Hauntings of Playing God is the third (and probably) last novel in the end of humanity series which began with The Man Who Watched The World End. 

The novels are set in the final years of the human race, which is dying out because of a genetic mutation babies start to be born with. In the space of a few years, all babies are born with the condition. Known as Blocks they cannot physically move on their own or even think. Skip to decades later and the last normal humans are all in the last years of their lives caring for the Blocks. 

The Hauntings of Playing God focuses on the individual story of Morgan, a ninety-three-year-old who becomes the last living carer in the block home she works at. Not only that, she may well be the last normal person in the world: the last human. Not long after the death of fellow carer Elaine, Morgan starts imagining the Blocks having conversations with her: charting the beginning of her mental deterioration from loneliness. 

But Morgan’s imaginings start taking a far sinister turn when she starts killing off Blocks so that she can better care for the others (needs outweighing the needs of the few is you will). Being an old woman herself Morgan finds it increasingly difficult to look after so many on her own so is forced to make the very difficult decision. Her conscience will not leave her alone though and her decent into madness then truly begins.

That’s all I can really say without giving the game away. As far as components of the story goes Morgan’s character has a lot of back story which is conveyed well at different points when she is looking back on her life. The story does pull you in as she goes through the motions.
Unfortunately The Hauntings of Playing God brings nothing new to the series in terms of ideas. If you’ve read the previous books you’ll know that a lot of the big questions this one asks are pretty much identical. 

Despite retreading old ground though, this is a good science fiction tale with an interesting protagonist.

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