The Ghost in the Heart of Tarven, by Zach Parker
6 Oct 2024The Book
Synopsis:
The Ghost in the Heart of Tarven is a sci-fi corporate espionage novella with a Midcentury Americana vibe and more than a dash of fantasy and office banter.
Ludeng Corporation has done the improbable. They have developed a device inserted just below the heart that makes people live three times longer. But the Heart of Tarven is more a miracle than a scientific breakthrough. The source of its power and the mechanism by which it operates are a mystery. Not even the brightest minds in the Shilloan Empire have been able to reverse-engineer the technology.
What makes the Heart of Tarven beat?
That is the question that drives Dian Corporation to send Birik Lev, a failed scientist and disappointing son of privilege, to infiltrate Ludeng in a desperate attempt to rescue its falling stock price.His only source inside is a fellow new employee, Adiri Roni, a failed entrepreneur falling back on a corporate career, who is fascinated by the Lost Gods, the once deities of the Shilloan Empire who left Their people millennia ago.
Birik finds the laboratory that birthed the Heart holds more than machinery and test tubes. He finds lies, love, consequences, and an Old Power all but forgotten.
My Review
The Ghost in the Heart of Tarven is a spy-fi novella written by Zach Parker. A greatly paced proposal centered around corporate espionage that also introduces themes such as personal agency and the conflict between godhood and corporate CEOs, with some moments of humour to ease the tension.
Our main character, Birik, is given a last opportunity to continue in his job, partly due to his family. He's sent to spy into Dian Corp, to get as much info as possible of their new dispositive, the heart of Tarven, which is reported to be miraculous, threatening to give them an incredible advantage over the competence. He joins Dian Corp, and together with her teammate, Adiri, he will be working on discovering the secret behind the heart of Tarven and the immortality it brings, without being aware that he's slowly falling in love with her mate, a relationship that might threat to end his mission.
In a tightly written plot, Adiri steals the spotlight from Birik; she's kinder and with a sense of humour, and plays a great role in humanizing a Birik who I wasn't connecting with, especially because I feel he was too focused on the physical aspect of other girls. Once the plot gets to the breakpoint, Parker introduces interesting concepts that present the fight between godhood and corporate CEOs; some of them could have benefitted from a longer form, but it managed to pick my attention.
Overall, a solid novella that will be enjoyed by those that like intrigue and also a bit of humour into a shell formed by a good espionage story. The Ghost in the Heart of Tarven is a book with potential, and definitely it was an enjoyable read.
Note: The following review contains only my personal thoughts as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole. No cuts or semi-finalists will be announced until Team Bookend Elves has read all of our books!
The Author/s
Zach Parker
I write science-fiction flavored fantasy. I have been writing fiction for the past four years or so, and I'm about to start putting it out there. I'd dig it if you'd check out my novella!
In real life, I am a statistics person in the tech industry. I'm an American, originally from Southern California. Now, I live in the Midwest with chipmunks, skunks, rabbits, and squirrels. Occasionally, raccoons invade our territory as well.
I like history and especially old myths and religions. I'm not really religious myself, but I find the idea of Gods fascinating and how belief intersects with history. So a lot of my writing is about the Gods and religious wars... in space.
I started writing because I had this idea for a fantasy world with a religious conflict. Initially, because I program, I thought I'd write a computer role-playing game. I wrote a basic engine, game rules, and a few levels, but I realized I was having more fun writing the story than the game so I decided to ditch the pretense and just write a novel with the world I'd started building (which had gotten seriously out of hand). I started writing drafts of what would become my current project in 2021 and wrote and threw out multiple 100k's words until I started to figure it out.
The most embarassing thing about myself that I am willing to share with Strangers On The Internet: I am an enormous (unhealthy) fan of Lana Del Rey. We are not yet good enough friends, dear Stranger, that I can reveal to you what percentile I am in the Spotify listening distribution for Lana, but one day, I hope we will be.