All Empires Fall, Eventually

This was a CBR Book Exchange book from a few years ago, thank you Mrs. Smith. I lent it to my father, who lent it to a friend, and then when I got it back it shuffled to the bottom of my tbr pile. That eye stares at me accusingly. I decided to start it last night hoping I would finish in time to write a review for bingo. Um. Less than 24 hours later, I’m finished and writing the review. The review may take longer than the read.

Lexicon is a science fiction suspense novel set in the present. It starts off with a bang as man named Will is assaulted and questioned in an airport bathroom. Then we jump to a young woman named Emily running a three card monte scam on tourists. The book flips back and forth between Will on the run for his life, and Emily trying to figure out the new world she is thrown into. Slowly the pieces come together.

In Lexicon, words have the power to affect people neurologically. Some people have the ability to persuade. They are trained at an academy and become Poets. If a Poet can identify your personality segment correctly, they can speak words that will put your brain under their control. Poets are part of the Organization, and that Organization is self governing. Where there is power without accountability, there is corruption.

Barry moves the story along, switching between points of view and timelines, driving towards the inevitable confrontation. Barry gives the reader enough information that you can start putting the pieces together faster than the characters, but that acts to ratchet up the tension. I was genuinely anxious about the fates of the characters to whom I had become attached. I’ve reached a point where I don’t want my books to make me anxious, but the story was so gripping that I kept reading.

CBR10Bingo – Backlog