The BIONICS series by Alicia Michaels: SPOTLIGHT, REVIEW & GUEST POST!

The Bionics Series by Alicia Michaels

THE BIONICS SERIES by Alicia Michaels

New Adult Dystopian Romance 

(Mature Content)

Published through: Crimson Tree Publishing

(The Adult Imprint of Clean teen Publishing.)

The year is 4010.

Nuclear war and the wasteful nature of humans have all but destroyed the United States. A new government regime rules the day with strict laws, rationed food, and careful control. When those injured in the nuclear blasts that rocked many of the nations largest cities are offered another chance by the Restoration Project, how could they refuse?

Little do they know that the robotic additions to their body will paint targets on their backs once the government decides that they are dangerous. At the forefront of the resistance is a girl with a bionic eye, Blythe Sol, who wants nothing more than to be a normal girl. Blythe has yet to realize that normal will never exist again for her, or anyone else.

The Revolution has begun...

The Bionics (Book 1) 

FREE

(New Adult or YA Mature) 

Most nineteen year-old girls are thinking about college, stretching the wings of newfound adulthood, and boys. Well, I’ll probably never go to college and all my dreams of the future are gone. I’ve been an adult for much longer than I should have been and my girlhood was stolen the minute the North Koreans dropped their nukes over the United States. As for boys … well, that’s pretty much out of the question now, too. My love life is too messy to even talk about.

I have nothing.

Except, maybe, my cause, my mission, The Resistance. It is the hope I have to cling to, I am counting on it to pave the way to my future. As things heat up and the terrorist sect known as The Rejects make themselves known opponents of society in this war, the choice to be on the side of good is harder than ever. My friends are broken; Olivia is a shell of her former self and Jenica is barely hanging on. Dax and Gage … well, we’re not talking about my love life, remember? 

The Rejects, the government, President Drummond; they are pressing in on us from all sides and the weight is tremendous. Still, when given the choice to crumble or stand, I’d rather stand. Times are dark, but we are here, a rebellion, a whisper in the dark, a spark that lights the flames of change.

Titanium (Book 2) 

(New Adult or YA Mature) 

Secrets (Book 3) 

(New Adult or YA Mature) 

NEW RELEASE:

SPARK (Book 4) 
(New Adult or YA Mature)

EXCERPT FROM THE BIONICS:

“I wish that I had died that day,” I admit, unable to look away from his gaze no matter how much my mind tells me that I need to. “I wish that all the time.”

He inches closer to me on the bed. “Is it really so bad? Professor Hinkley gave you and the others a second chance at life. It’s not fair that the government has decided you and others like you pose a threat.” 

I think about a news broadcast I saw a couple of weeks ago, showing a surveillance video of a man with an arm identical to mine smashing in the window of someone’s car and beating them to a bloody pulp for no reason, before pulling a limp body from the driver’s seat and driving off in the stolen vehicle. Of course the thief was found and immediately executed; no trail, no jury, no questions asked. 

“Some of us are dangerous,” I answer, and of course, it’s the truth. 

“Some people are dangerous,” he insists. “Bionics are still people….just modified.” 

“Right now your blood pressure is 124/90, your heart rate is an elevated 70 beats per minute; not bad, but still high for a healthy male that I assume is athletic. You have a tattoo on your left arm of an eagle, and a fractured rib.” 

“That is amazing.” 

I shrug. “It’s my eye. It is capable of reading a person’s body heat signature as well as their vital statistics. It allows me to pull away individual layers, such as clothing, skin, and muscle to expose what’s underneath. It’s how I knew about the rib.” 

I reach out with my bionic arm and poke the rib for emphasis, raising my eyebrows as he winces in pain. “Still think I’m human?” 

Gage reaches for my arm—my robotic arm—and grabs it by the hand. I can’t feel it, or his hand circling the wrist above it. His eyebrows wrinkle as he turns my arm over, inside facing up. He traces the inside of my arm, his fingers sliding over the cool metal and, for the first time since I woke up with that hunk of machinery on the other end of my elbow, I am wishing that I could feel the damn thing. 

“Cold,” he murmurs as he draws circles on the metal. His fingers stop on the inside of my elbow, on the line where the titanium ends and I begin. I hear his breath catch in his throat and another noisy swallow as the pad of his index finger slides over my skin. I gasp as he trails it up the inside of my arm, flesh now on flesh. The human contact that I’ve denied myself for years has left me sensitive to every touch, and I feel as if I’m being caressed for the first time. 

Of course Dax has held my hand from time to time; he’s even held me against him some nights when the nightmares get particularly bad until I fall back asleep. But he’s never touched me like this, and while I’m no virgin I certainly feel like one right now. A thousand emotions are exploding in me at one time and just as many sensations are following the path his finger traces up to my shoulder, pausing at the strap of my tank top. 

“Warm,” he says with a smile. “Only about….what…ten percent of you is metal. When I got past your elbow, I felt skin, blood flowing through veins, muscle, and…goose bumps?” 

He says that last bit with a smile, forcing me to look away in embarrassment. He holds his arm out toward me, pulling up the sleeve of his shirt and revealing a tanned arm sprinkled with light blond hair, which is standing on end. He leaves the sleeve above his elbow and holds his arm out in front of me. 

“See?” he says gently, his head way too close to mine, his breath brushing my cheek. “I have them too.” 

About Alicia Michaels:

Ever since she first read books like Chronicles of Narnia or Goosebumps, Alicia has been a lover of mind-bending fiction. Wherever imagination takes her, she is more than happy to call that place her home. The mother of two and wife to an Army sergeant loves chocolate, coffee, and of course good books. When not writing, you can usually find her with her nose in a book, shopping for shoes and fabulous jewelry, or spending time with her loving family.

Guest Post by Alicia Michaels

The Reality of Bionic Technology in the Real World

One of the most common pieces of feedback I get for the books in the Bionics series, is its plausibility. People read The Bionics, and are struck by the similarities in our own, very real society. Politics, declining morals, social discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion … the list goes on. That’s because society as we know it now was my inspiration for this series. I thought a lot about our society and the current state of the world, and then I advanced it in my mind. I thought about how out-of-control things could spin if people don’t start making some changes and think about the way they treat each other.

One thing people don’t seem to know, though, is how very close we are to the sort of technology that The Bionics features. People who are part human, part cyborg is more realistic than you might think, and pretty soon these people will be walking the street beside you and me in all of their very cool, technologically advanced glory. Robotic limbs are replacing the old school ones. A robotic suit of sorts has recently been invented that is designed to help people with spinal cord injuries to walk again. I read a story recently about a bionic man who has been created (nick named frank, which is a nod to Frankenstein). He talks, and breaths with the help of bionic organs, including a heart and fully functional circulatory system. Our technology is advancing rapidly, and things that once seemed possible are now not only possible, but have become tangible.

While it all sounds swell, I can’t help but wonder if we haven’t started going too far. I mean, a bionic man sounds cool in theory, but at some point I have to wonder if we aren’t trying to play God. Even if you don’t believe in a higher power, you have to admit that too much technology is not always a good thing. Which is another reason why I believe so many connect with the series as being realistic. Deep down, we know that while technology is cool and helpful in our everyday lives, at some point it becomes just a little bit too much.

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What did Sister Sinister think of the BIONICS?

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I gave it 5 Stars!

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I  was given all 5 books of the BIONICS series as a part of the Bionics Blog Tour, which is awesome because I'd been eying them for awhile. The novellas follow a group of modified humans known as Bionics, forced into an underground Resistance or face execution by the President and his followers. Switching between the POVs of its main protagonists, THE BIONICS suffer loss and companionship, love and persecution. A fun series for certain!

(Note: There ARE quite a few errors that another edit would catch, but in this case, I ignored them due to my delight at finally finding a fun series about cyborgs.)