The Kon-Tiki Quartet, Part 4. PS Publishing, 2021, 114 p.

The last thing Kat Manning and Travis Denholme can remember is being in an operating theatre on the colony planet of Newhaven where their minds were to be scanned for the secrets they held. Now they have been woken up in new bodies and find themselves back in Earth orbit a century later – and, due to the neurotransmitter they had discovered, with the ability to read minds. They have been sent to Earth to forestall the plans of their old enemy Ward Richards to form society in his own image and also to bring the benefits of the neurotransmitter to the remaining inhabitants of Earth. This brings them back to their old base Lakenheath in East Anglia where the Kon-Tiki project was brought to fruition.

Conditions back on Earth have regressed. Kat and Travis fall into the hands of a group known as Mayflies who are in thrall to an overclass of Longlords. In some respects these correspond to the Eloi and Morlocks of Wells’s The Time Machine. Old antagonist Daniel DeVries helps them into the Longlord compound where they discover that the Longlords in effect prey on the Mayflies in order to extend their own lives. But the technology is imperfect and faults have crept in. A now very decrepit original of Ward Richards is at the head of the Longlords but unknown to him, Paulo Martinez, the version of him printed on Newhaven and whose followers ensured he got back to Earth is fully intent on ruling the roost. Kat, Travis and DeVries conspire to thwart his plans.

Both Brooke and Brown are never less than readable. The Quartet of which this is the final part is more of an action adventure than a cerebral endeavour. It has the usual betrayals, setbacks and triumphs but above all it makes a case for humans being ultimately cooperative creatures and that the ability to read minds will only encourage that in us.

Pedant’s corner:- “Time interval later” count: less than ten.
Otherwise; “She wondered how Travis … Mediterranean lineage?” (Isn’t a question so doesn’t need a question mark,) “comprised of “ (just comprised here; no ‘of’,) “DeVries’s arms” (Travis’s arms makes more sense,) resister (register,) not a typo but as to “like Cortés conquering the Aztecs with Christianity and syphilis” (I don’t think syphilis was involved, and the Christianity was more like an afterthought. [It was actually more that Cortés seemed to fulfil an ancient Aztec prophecy which led to his success.])

The Kon-Tiki Quartet Part 3. PS Publishing, 2019, 102 p.

Several years on from Parasites, the second in Brown and Brooke’s Kon-Tiki quartet, Kat Manning and Travis Denholme have not revealed the secret of how Daniel DeVries died, nor of Travis’s discovery of the neurotransmitter the geosaurs on the planet of Newhaven produce from their symbiosis with their marmoset companions. This can allow telepathy at short range and for a short period and was instrumental in the circumstances of DeVries’s death. Ever since then, Kat and Travis have been working clandestinely together, he to synthesise the transmitter, she to work out the effects such a drug may have on the attitudes and behaviour of the human population.

Kat arranges a meeting where they can thrash out their problems but it is forestalled when Travis is shot by a stranger. Before the hit can be finished off a man called Meyers saves Travis by wrestling with his attacker, who is seriously injured. Something about the two is odd, there is a new, fresh quality to their skin and a recognisable aspect to their behaviours.

This incident plunges the pair into a plot involving the printing technology which allowed the present colonists to be produced on Newhaven and the question of whether or not the deep-frozen passengers on the Kon-Tiki ought to be resurrected, mixed in with a political dilemma about the direction the colony ought to take – and one reprinted man’s megalomania.

It’s unfortunate that the constraints of the series – plot has to be incorporated into each instalment – do not quite allow a fuller exploration of the implications for the characters of the printing technology. Though it is touched on, how it would feel to have memories of a marriage that the other person involved does not, the dynamics of that skewed relationship are somewhat lost.

Both Brown and Brooke, individually and collectively, are never less than readable though.

‘Time interval later’ count: 9.

Pedant’s corner:- well done for using that excellent Scottish word havering.
Otherwise; whiskey (whisky, please,) “Or ‘We need to’” (Or, ‘We need to’,) “Or ‘Can you imagine’” (Or, ‘Can you imagine’,) “if Travis and I lay low for a while” (is this the conditional? In which case I think it’s okay. Or should it be ‘if Travis and I lie low’? Stick in the ‘were’ and it would certainly be ‘if Travis and I were to lie low’,) “made her wanted to punch him” (want to punch him) “said in a barely a whisper” (remove the first ‘a’) “ful-length” (full-length.)