Unknown 9: Genesis

Thank you Reflector Entertainment for sending us this book to review!

Unknown 9: Genesis is a novel written by Layton Green that was published on March 13, 2020, otherwise famously known as the day that the United States went into quarantine because of COVID-19. It’s the first in a trilogy, and the second book, Revelation, is going to be released to the public on April 13, 2021.

The premise is that a young astrophysicist by the name of Andie Robertson loses her mentor, a man by the name of Dr. James Corwin, to the clutches of death. However, the circumstances surrounding his passing are a bit strange, to say the least, and she is forced on a goose chase based off of clues he’s left behind for her to find. As she continues upon her journey that spans the entire planet, she begins questioning many facets of her own reality as she reveals clue after clue. Joining her is a journalist who has been discredited from his dream job and hopes to get it back.

The first thing I noticed when I began to read this book is the quality of writing that is present. The novel is extremely well written, and I found myself immersed in the story very quickly. It comes as no surprise that Layton Green wormed his way to the spot of bestselling author. The next thing I noticed is that the plot is definitely targeted towards adults. It contains murder, references to lust, and has several curse words of varying intensity scattered throughout. The novel also pokes at many hard questions concerning the nature of information that a child probably would have trouble grasping.

When I received the book, it was in a magnetic sealing box and had a metal coin at the bottom, which has the symbol of a prominent organization in the story. It’s clear the marketing is professional and carefully designed, as the series has an accompanying scripted podcast available on Apple Podcast, as well as a comic series taking place in the same universe.

As a result of this, I was surprised when I noticed the typos in the fully published novel that somehow slipped the editor’s eye. There are only a few, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen typos in a book that entered the market already, but to my knowledge, those authors were not bestsellers. One typo is an issue of a special character in the name of a town, and the special character is in bold for no reason. The rest of the word is printed normally. The rest of them are matters of having random extra letters that were never deleted.

Genesis also makes several references to various Internet and mathematical phenomena, one of the more notable ones being Cicada 3301. I had never actually heard of Cicada 3301 before reading this book, and when I delved into the details, I became fascinated. I’ll spare you the story, but it was basically an incredibly difficult cryptography puzzle that ends up getting expertly weaved into the world of the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Genesis, and I’m intrigued both by the premise and execution of the story. I would love to see more, and to see what direction things end up taking.

- Kittycathead

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