CBR17 Bingo: Free (swapping out Migrant)
In a world pretty much like our own, people were just going about their ordinary lives when suddenly, everything changed. Gigantic portals to some other mystical dimension began opening all over the world. It soon became clear that if the portals were left unattended for a while, hordes of horrific monsters emerged and proceeded to wreak havoc. Once specialised teams started breaching the gates, they discovered each portal contained a lot of rare and valuable minerals and resources, as well as the scary monsters, and each gate had an anchor, which, when destroyed, would collapse the gates. Humans started developing specialised talents that allowed them to help explore the gates and fight the emerging threats.
One of the people whose world changed irrevocably with the appearance of the first gates was Adaline “Ada” Moore. She had a supportive husband and two kids, but after the chaos and terror of the first invasion of monsters, her husband decided he had other places to be, and abandoned her and her children entirely. Ada is now employed by the government, and her Talent allows her to survey the various breaches for whatever resources are there, to ascertain what needs to be extracted before the gate collapses. Her talent is rare and sought-after, so she has been in hundreds of breaches over the past decade, always carefully guarded and one of the first people to be evacuated if something goes wrong.
But not this time. Going into a breach, there is an unexpected attack of monsters that the advance team didn’t find and neutralise, and the man who is supposed to guard Ada panics, lets off an explosion to hide his tracks and runs away, trapping Ada, the only human survivor, in a labyrinthine cave system with no obvious exit. Her only companion is a scared tracker dog, a German Shepherd named Bear. She is granted an unexpected gift by a dying alien warrior woman, who was fighting the ruthless monsters that attacked the team. The woman basically dies in Ada’s arms, but gifts Ada a mystical gemstone which sinks into Ada’s forehead before the woman dies. She is told this is her “inheritance”, and as she is forced to traverse the creepy and dangerous passages in the dark, Ada discovers that the gemstone has given her increased endurance, the ability to see in the near dark, as well as a wealth of knowledge about alien worlds and civilisations Ada never dreamed existed.
Ada believes herself to be abandoned, assuming everyone outside believes she died in the attack. However, she promised her children she would be home, and refuses to leave them orphaned if she has anything to say about it. Ada has no previous experience with fighting and self-defence, and Bear is only barely an adult dog. Nevertheless, they are forced to fight for their lives and level up quickly to survive. As an unexpected side effect, it turns out that eating alien monster mystery meat as your only source of protein comes with a number of new and exciting mutations that enhance Ada and her trusty dog considerably.
Of writers still alive today, Ilona Andrews are among my absolute favourites. The husband and wife writing team have written some of my favourite paranormal fantasies over the past decade and a half, and I love that some of their most creative works have begun as free episodic fiction on their website, to give their fans something diverting to read when times get tough. The Inheritance, now part one of The Breach Wars, was supposed to be a novella length story, published in installments about once a week, but as is so often the case, the authors discover that they need to write more and longer to make the story complete, and we lucky readers therefore ended up with a short novel instead, and the promise of more excitement to come.
Full review here.