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 Islandβs former occupants: Unit 731, Japanβs 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 allβnot anymore.
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