CRUSHING BOOKS: THE SAN ANGELES SERIES BY GERALD BRANDT

       Kris Ballard is a motorcycle courier. A nobody. Level 2 trash in a multi-level city that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border—a land where corporations make all the rules. A runaway since the age of fourteen, Kris struggled to set up her life, barely scraping by, working hard to make it without anyone's help.  
       But a late day delivery changes everything when she walks in on the murder of one of her clients. Now she's stuck with a mysterious package that everyone wants. It looks like the corporations want Kris gone, and are willing to go to almost any length to make it happen.  

       A year ago, Kris’s life changed irrevocably when a delivery went terribly wrong, and she was targeted for termination by the Meridian corporation, one of the most powerful of the megaconglomerates that controlled the government. Salvation came in the form of Ian Miller, who rescued Kris from certain death, recruiting her for the underground resistance group of which he was a part. 
       Since then, Kris has been hidden with the resistance, training to become an operative. Just as her training with the anti-corporate movement is nearing its end, their compound is destroyed by surprise attack.

       A year ago, Kris's life was torn apart when a delivery went wrong. The last year spent training with the anti-corporate movement had been the closest she'd ever gotten to normal.
       Now, war has broken out between the corporations, and the lower levels of San Angeles are paying the price. Water and food are rationed. People are being ripped from their families in massive sweeps, drafted to fight. Those remaining live in a wasteland. The insurgents are trying to help, but Kris is being left out, given menial tasks instead of doing what she was trained for.

​       Motorcycles, corrupt corporations, space ships, and bond-like villains...hell yeah!

       I have to start by saying that I am a bit biased about this series. I happened to score an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of The Courier in my book bag at World Fantasy Con 2015 a few months before the Hardcover came out. In fact, my signed copy has "#4" penned next to Gerald's signature on the title page,  marking it as his 4th autograph, and I knew as soon as I finished reading the book that Gerald was going to be around the Science Fiction and Fantasy scene for a long time. 
       There is something special about catching a new author right at the beginning of their professional writing career. You feel like you're part of the journey. Not in a crazy stalker way, like standing outside his window on a cold, snowy night in Winnipeg watching him write (I promise that wasn't me Gerald) or in that Stephen King Misery kind of way that will see him locked in your cabin  writing your whims in a couple years,  but in that smug, knowing way...like when you overhear two people discuss a book in the aisle at Barnes and Noble (something I find most avid reader's secretly love). It's an I knew about this back when moment. Like being one of the first to read Game of Thrones before millions of viewers became enthralled by the series. If for no other reason than this, I'll keep reading Gerald's books. The fact that his books are well-written, fast-paced, thrilling reads is only icing on the cake.
        So on to the books themselves. Gerald builds a world on a few fairly simple premises. Big cities of the future have run out of room, so instead of out, they've built up, level upon level, until the poor predictably live near the bottom and the rich near the top. Of course the corrupt cooperations run it all. What makes this world special, however, is the evolution of technology. The idea that no data in the future will be secure, and the only way to move it safely is to step backwards in technology and deliver it by hand (or in this case by motorcycle courier). Enter Kris, a fairly low-level courier who caries the wrong data at the wrong time. From the time Kris twists the throttle on her motorcycle to escape an attack at a delivery gone wrong, the books never slows down. 
       Who will enjoy this series? Well, if all you enjoy is Science Fiction about first contacts with mysterious alien cultures or Space Operas about interstellar adventure, this may not be the series for you. But if you are more interested in the characters and their motivations than the science and want a thrilling ride in a borderline dystopian future, this is definitely right up your alley. Normally I like to make comparisons, but I find it difficult to make a comparison to this series. If I was making a recipe, I'd say start with a pinch of William Gibson, a healthy dash of Robert J. Sawyer, and just a hint of Robert Ludlum, then cover in motorcycle oil and bring to a boil. All-in-all, a fast, fun read.