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Tony Bertauski
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Halfskin Boxed: A Technothriller Kindle Edition

by Tony Bertauski (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 449 ratings
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A new world has arrived…

Underground Book Reviews 2015 Top Pick Award

Synthetic stem cells mean no more organ failure, no more pharmaceuticals. No cancer. The human race is stronger and smarter. Is it better?

Cali is a nanobiometric engineer who has been her younger brother’s guardian since their parents died. She’s lost too many people in her life to lose another. When the government declares the Halfskin Laws will shut down anyone with too many synthetics, she decides to hide him.

Jamie wants to be a halfskin. Her days are dull and pointless. More synthetics would give her control of her life. She’s already 49.9%. One more dose and she registers. Then she gets shutdown. But there is a way to hide.

Paul is a brick. 100% synthetic. Only the Sentient Laws keep him alive. Life on the Settlement, however, is hardly living. He wants to escape, to return to a simpler life when he was organic. Imperfect. When he was clay. But that world is over. A new one is just beginning.

Follow this twisting, slippery grip on reality as the human race battles for perfection only to discover a secret that is beyond anyone’s imagination.


REVIEWS FOR HALFSKIN

  • “This, quite frankly, is one of the best books I’ve read.” –John Gregory Hancock, Amazon Reviewer
  • “WOW.” –Amanda Taylor, Amazon Reviewer
  • “I was not expecting the twists…” –Amazon Reviewer
  • “Hated finishing this book… many hours of enjoyment.” –Eleanor Wendlberger, Amazon Reviewer
  • “Halfskin is one of the best science fiction stories I’ve read this year.” –ACFlory, Amazon Reviewer
  • “Twisty turny, unexpectedness!!!!!! LOVED THE BOOK!” –Aisha-Kimberly Hashmi, Amazon Reviewer
  • “One of the best stories i[sic] have read in a long time!” Brian, Amazon Reviewer
  • “I was absolutely hooked from page 1!” –Amazon Reviewer


AWARDS

Underground Book Reviews 2015 Top Pick Award

Previous page
  1. Print length
    674 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    September 17, 2015
  5. Reading age
    16 - 18 years
  6. Grade level
    9 - 12
  7. File size
    1518 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Top Pick Award (2015), Underground Reviews

From the Author

Get the Bertauski Starter Library (four books FREE) at BERTAUSKI.COM

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B015JMSEU6
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ DeadPixel Publications (September 17, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 17, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1518 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 674 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 449 ratings

About the author

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Tony Bertauski

Tony Bertauski

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USA Today Bestselling Author.

My writing career began with magazine columns, landscape design textbooks, and a gardening column at the Post and Courier (Charleston, SC). However, I've always fancied fiction.

My grandpa never graduated high school. He retired from a steel mill in the mid-70s. He was uneducated, but he was a voracious reader. I remember going through his bookshelves of paperback sci-fi novels, smelling musty old paper, pulling Piers Anthony and Isaac Asimov off shelf and promising to bring them back. I was fascinated by robots that could think and act like people. What happened when they died?

I'm a cynical reader. I demand the writer sweep me into his/her story and carry me to the end. I'd rather sail a boat than climb a mountain. That's the sort of stuff I want to write, not the assigned reading we got in school. I want to create stories that kept you up late.

Having a story unfold inside your head is an experience different than reading. You connect with characters in a deeper, more meaningful way. You feel them, empathize with them, cheer for them and even mourn. The challenge is to get the reader to experience the same thing, even if it's only a fraction of what the writer feels. Not so easy.

In 2008, I won the South Carolina Fiction Open with Four Letter Words, a short story inspired by my grandfather and Alzheimer's Disease. My first step as a novelist began when I developed a story to encourage my young son to read. This story became The Socket Greeny Saga. Socket tapped into my lifetime fascination with consciousness and identity, but this character does it from a young adult's struggle with his place in the world.

After Socket, I thought I was done with fiction. But then the ideas kept coming, and I kept writing. Most of my work investigates the human condition and the meaning of life, but not in ordinary fashion. About half of my work is Young Adult (Socket Greeny, Claus, Foreverland) because it speaks to that age of indecision and the struggle with identity. But I like to venture into adult fiction (Halfskin, Drayton) so I can cuss. Either way, I like to be entertaining.

And I'm a big fan of plot twists.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
449 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Ross C Miller - Author & Editing
5.0 out of 5 stars Unsolicited and unconnected.
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2017
Verified Purchase
I have no connection to the author, and I wasn't asked for a review. That being said...
Technical/Objective: Around Chapter 27 of the first book, the editing seems to have been missed for a few chapters. Past that, there are extremely few technical errors. The set may be slightly difficult to read for some, due to the skipping around the author does, telling the story. If you expect it, and don't let the flow of the story bother you, then you'll find that it's well worth the little effort you'll have to make. I can't say that each book is necessarily a stand alone, as they must be read in sequence, but neither are they cliffhangers. As the story progresses, the telling of it gets better, as well. The characters aren't necessarily stereotypical, in that the world that must exist to support this story wouldn't actually allow for many of them to exist as they do. So, the world he creates isn't necessarily stereotypical, either.
Subjective: This is a well thought out story, and I really enjoyed it. I like that these are full-length books, and not just aggrandized novelettes. While they were by no means lacking, Mr. Bertauski could have put an awful lot more detail into it, and the story wouldn't have suffered. I thoroughly enjoyed the metaphysical questions that Mr. Bertauski explores.
All in all, this set is an excellent read. I recommend it highly. Well done, Mr. Bertauski. Well done.
4 people found this helpful
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Curious Cat
4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining!
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2019
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Well written and engaging. The ending of the last book of the trilogy drags on a bit more than necessary but overall a good read.
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DenverBrian
3.0 out of 5 stars Read the first two, then stop - skip the last one
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2017
Verified Purchase
This is almost a two-book set, with Parts I and II comprising a five-star adventure with excellent world-building around very plausible near-future possibilities. We're all beginning to go "biomite" right now - artificial limbs, replacement eye lenses that can give you 20/5 vision, and on and on. Bertauski takes this and runs with it in a riveting way, even with religious overtones that don't seem to quite mesh up with the way the world he's built actually works.

And then...the third book in the series abandons the best characters in favor of one who is thoroughly unlikeable - and creates hundreds, if not thousands, of clones of him throughout the world. Just one example of how this third book goes off the rails: If Marcus is really a collection of duplicates out there in the world - how has no one on the planet not made the connection? The odds of someone seeing two or three of this guy and wondering what's up are close to 100%. That's never explained, but then again, most of the third book defies explanation. Because alternate realities, I guess.

It's perplexing because Bertauski can obviously write tight, well-woven, interesting plot lines. I'm wondering if he wasn't committed to a trilogy and just got tired of this particular world. Very sad. Hint: Nix was a character worth exploring far more in Book III - he's your hero. Essentially ignoring him in the third book was a fatal mistake.
15 people found this helpful
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Charlene C. Brett
5.0 out of 5 stars Read F
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2023
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I LOVE the way this author unravels a story. I first discovered him when I read the FOREVERLAND series. I was hooked. I searched books by the author and found that HALFSKIN should have preceded FOREVERLAND. But no matter, as both books can stand on their own merit. The HALFSKIN 3 books in one is very good. It will draw you in and you won’t be able to put it down. The last quarter of the book neglected the main characters that made it great and I felt the last 9 chapters were rushed to meet a deadline. But still, the writing is brilliant, as the author is brilliant. Next up: CLAUS 1, 2 and 3.
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BuzziMc
4.0 out of 5 stars A must read
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2016
Verified Purchase
This has been one of the best reads I've had in a long time. It gripped me and kept me all the way through. I haven't enjoyed reading anything so much in a long time. The characters were well written and well thought out. This will be one I'll set aside and read again some day.
5 people found this helpful
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Ixiny
5.0 out of 5 stars A different and highly entertaining look at technology and the ways people think of to use & misuse it
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2016
Verified Purchase
Well written, engaging, held my interest to the last page! This three-book package was such a great purchase. Each book drew me in to the point of reading well into the night. I was so glad I had the next book when I finished one, although it should be noted that each of these three books works as a stand-alone; each storyline was satisfactorily tied up with no cliffhangers -- big plus in a time in which it's getting harder and harder to buy a book that doesn't require you to purchase two or more subsequent books. Worst gimmick ever, and for that alone this author is going down as a favorite of mine! The technology and the way it was drawn into the fabric of the people's lives was vividly drawn; the characters were complex and all too human. There was a lot of struggle and heartbreak, but also the occasional reward of a happy if sometimes fleeting outcome. I hate reading reviews that read like a book report, giving away the plot, so suffice it to say if you're interested in technology and its use in the advancement and/or detriment of our species, well drawn characters that you can love and hate and empathize with, plus top-notch writing and editing, these books - and I suspect this author - are for you!
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Michael Chong
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent story
Reviewed in Canada on August 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
Fabulous series enjoyed from the first page to the end. The story unfolds and the mysteries deepen as you progress. You will feel like you've been pulled into the book and walking alongside the characters
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david wright
5.0 out of 5 stars When dreams become nightmares
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2019
Verified Purchase
What an absorbing and refreshingly different trilogy.
I have read the Foreverland series and had an inkling that this may be in a similar style. It both is and it isn't.
Right from the start we are plunged into a none too futuristic world where biomites are they way forward for medical technology. As is usually the case, other uses are quickly found and corruption soon sets in. What follows is an extremely well written story where individuals rights are abused, freedoms challenged and abolished, and reality is questioned again and again.
You will form an opinion and then start to question if your belief is as solid as you once thought it was. The characters are superb and fit together nicely, interacting flawlessly to create the perfect believable unreality. Viewpoints are altered, dreams become reality, reality becomes a dream etc...This series will make your head spin, but in a good way. I really enjoyed meeting these characters and sharing their dreams and watching everything unfold to the final outcome. At a time when Virtual Reality is gaining in popularity, and technology is advancing with 3d printers and artificial organs, this shows a potential next step from there and then twists it all into oblivion.
One person found this helpful
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monte8888
5.0 out of 5 stars One,two,three - what a knockout
Reviewed in Australia on February 12, 2019
Verified Purchase
Three great books boxed together. Unique in the fact that all three are consistently great. Mind blowing trip in a not too distant future.
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2017
Verified Purchase
enjoyable book
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Peter Eerden
4.0 out of 5 stars A fabulous read with a bitter-sweet ending
Reviewed in Australia on September 27, 2019
Verified Purchase
The concepts in this read were exceptional and you need to read the series in its entirety (as I did here) to get the benefit. What was disappointing for me was the ending that appeared contrived as though the author had run out of ideas and was rushing to finish off the series. Having said that I read it all and enjoyed most of it.
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