Mark Hawkins is aboard the Magellan, a research ship
studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. When a massive
storm hits and technical problems arise, the crew is left
stranded near a tropical island. They soon find out that two
crewmen are dead and another is missing, and to top it off,
they have no memory of how they got here. A team is employed
to the island in a search for the missing man. The island is
discovered to be a former World War II Japan Unit 731
occupied location. This unit had performed human
experimentation and the crew of the ship find evidence left
behind of the gruesome happenings. There are graves and a
laboratory where the experiments were conducted, and the
deeper they go, the more horrible it gets. The crew members
begin to disappear and Hawkins finds out they are not alone.
Now he must save them from a terrible fate before it's too
late.
As a lover of horror, I was delighted with this scary and
horrifying read. It blended elements of high tension with
straight up disgusting experiments and edge of your seat
moments. Robinson's attention to scientific detail and
explanations
are fantastic and remind me of Crichton. The plot starts out
a little slow, but once it gains speed, it doesn't slow
down, and the scares are more than enough to hook readers
and keep them entranced until the end.
Even more unsettling
is the fact that Unit 731 was a real faction performing
human experimentation. Seriously. Go look it up on Wikipedia
right now. I don't know about you, but knowing this is the
kind of thing that keeps me up at night. The creatures that
author Jeremy Robinson comes up with are equal parts
fascinating and horrendous. I liken the experience of
reading about them to craning your neck at a car wreck, even
though you know you shouldn't and you really don't want to
see what's there, or peeking through your fingers at a scary
movie as a child.
The characters are well written and I
found them easy to root for. Mr. Robinson is a master at
suspense. Fans of science fiction, horror and thrillers will
find ISLAND 731 a pleasant addition to their shelves.
Mark Hawkins, former park ranger and expert tracker, is out
of his element, working on board the Magellan, a
research vessel studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
But his work is interrupted when, surrounded by thirty miles
of refuse, the ship and its high tech systems are
plagued by a series of strange malfunctions and the crew is
battered by a raging storm.
When the storm fades and
the sun rises, the beaten crew awakens to find themselves
anchored in the protective cove of a tropical island...and
no one knows how they got there. Even worse, the ship has
been sabotaged, two crewman are dead and a third is missing.
Hawkins spots signs of the missing man on shore and leads a
small team to bring him back. But they quickly discover
evidence of a brutal history left behind by the Island’s
former occupants: Unit 731, Japan’s ruthless World War II
human experimentation program. Mass graves and military
fortifications dot the island, along with a decades old
laboratory housing the remains of hideous
experiments.
As crew members start to disappear,
Hawkins realizes that they are not alone. In fact, they were
brought to this strange and horrible island. The crew is
taken one-by-one and while Hawkins fights to save his
friends, he learns the horrible truth: Island 731 was never
decommissioned and the person taking his crewmates may not
be a person at all—not anymore.
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