The Mark of Man – Owen H. Lewis (Mirador Publishing)
 “Hal, a Forty, knows when he is going to die. In fact through a cruel genetic twist, so does everybody else; for all 22nd Century humans are born branded with a mark demonstrating their organic timeline. If one has forty rings, one dies at forty. As with all humans, Hal has learned to accept his fate, until he falls in love with Ama, a Ninety. In the search for a cure to The Mark, Laozi Veda, the head of the Vedas Corporation, coerces Ama into leaving Hal and sends her on a secret mission with a team of \’specialists\’ to the distant planet of Kepler. A year later Hal, loveless and careworn, receives an unexpected offer to travel under a different guise to the same place. He arrives to find an outwardly peaceful society but soon after conditions change and the planet becomes an extremely dangerous place for them all. With fascinating new insights into complex societies, The Mark of Man, is science fiction at its best – giving us the \’what if\’ question with unwavering commitment and invention. From alien idles to terrorist uprisings, this book will echo through the portals of time to give fresh insight into the human condition”
                                                          
Philosophical is the perfect word to describe ‘The Mark of Man’ and before reading this novel I’d never heard of Owen H. Lewis. Now, to be honest, and I point this out a lot, I am not strictly a fan of Sci-Fi as a genre, but like any genre, there are good and bad authors and books, but it just isn’t really my ‘thing’. The Mark of Man’ doesn’t read like your standard aliens among us or invasion leading to world domination style tale, and much more like ‘Blade Runner’ did with movies, this concentrates very heavily on the nature and perception of the characters and how they view humanity. It seems to me that Lewis uses this platform to write about his own beliefs and challenges what he deems to be wrong with the world, in particular capitalist culture, does an exceptional job on all fronts while spinning a great yarn. Gav