BISENTIENT

“Conspiracies terrestrial and extra- power O'Connor’s swift, surprising debut, a thriller of alternate realities, mad preacher politicians, and alien intervention in Earth’s affairs—secrets stumbled upon by Mason Plater, a cameraman on documentaries. Mason first experiences something strange when he’s filming in the “Dead Zone” ward of a mental hospital and a comatose patient seems to move. Soon, on a beach, he encounters what seems to be Gail Hartston, the comatose woman from the hospital, possessed of intimate knowledge about the headaches he’s been suffering. Soon, Mason begins missing time, in the sense of classic UFO abductee stories, and desperately trying to remember whatever he can about the potentially cosmic mystery embroiling him.

The pleasures of this crisply told page-turner come from O’Connor’s deft handling of reader expectations, especially as what Mason is facing seems connected to the highest echelons of global power. As Mason and intern Molly investigate, in brisk and tantalizing scenes, a secret society and the manipulation of dreams, on both sides of the Atlantic, seemingly nefarious political forces are keeping secrets: the U.K.’s home secretary monitors an experiment involving the brain waves of the comatose, and in Dallas a megachurch pastor turned senatorial candidate takes dark action when an investigative journalist starts asking tough questions about the Church of the Reformation.

Bursts of action, creepy rituals, head-spinning revelations, and intimations of the supernatural deliver genre thrills, while O’Connor smartly games out the impact these developments could have on fictional but plausible political situations. Planting mysteries enough for the series to come, O’Connor draws on UFO abduction lore (including weird implants), the alternate realities of cyberthrillers, and even fun cults-and-demons hokum to conjure a horror-tinged urban fantasy that does something rare: it truly surprises, especially as a mismatched group faces the Others and an impossible machine. Despite the swift pace, the book’s hefty length and sweeping plot is at times daunting, though the companionable characters help (especially techie Zach). A promising start to the series.

Takeaway: Creepy, ambitious thriller of conspiracies, other realities, and major surprises.” ---BookLife by Publishers Weekly

“Conspiratorial nightmares merge with the dark realities of power, religion, and psychological manipulation in Bisentient by Patrick O’Connor, a chilling thriller that touches on a number of genres.

Mason, a curious cameraman, is pulled into the surreality of psychic connections after a beautiful woman begins frequenting his dreams. In the real world, she remains comatose in a mental institution, yet the British government has taken a classified interest in her cognitive abilities. At the same time, a clan of religious zealots is using blackmail, extortion, and murder to climb America’s political ladder, and the connections between the two are disturbing. Mason must learn to navigate – and survive – alternate dream world realities to prevent an apocalyptic prophecy, with the help of his intrepid new partner Molly, while staying one step ahead of the myriad forces who want to put him to sleep forever.

Thematically, this book resonates powerfully given today’s political and social climate, where conflicts over religious rights and personal autonomy are rampant. O’Connor takes this a step further by introducing an ancient malevolent entity, but it doesn’t take much extrapolation to fit that into a larger geopolitical metaphor, using poignant descriptive passages and believable relationship-building to bring this other wordly story into our present-day sphere.

Such expansive storytelling means that the book should appeal to a broad fandom, from sci-fi and dystopian readers to readers of political thrillers and religious conspiracies, for an enticing start to the author’s Realm Series.” ---Self-Publishing Review