My Friday Post: The Passengers by John Marrs

Published on by Margaret

Book Beginnings Button

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

This week I’m featuring The Passengers by John Marrs, one of the books I currently reading. It’s a thriller set in the near future.

The Passengers

PROLOGUE

UK NEWS House of Lords votes unanimously in favour of driverless vehicles on British roads within five years. Ban on non-autonomous vehicles expected within  a decade.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56These are the rules:

  1. Grab a book, any book.
  2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
  3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
  4. Post it.
  5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

Two male security operatives approached her. They each had one slightly discoloured iris that Libby recognised as Smart lenses. Why does everything these days have to be Smart? she wondered. Perhaps Nina had been right and Libby would have been better suited to the dark ages, albeit without the dinosaurs.

Blurb:

When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course.

The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife – and parents of two – who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

~~~

I’ve read 40% of this book so far and I’m enjoying it. It paints a scary picture of the future and I’m wondering how it will end. I’m expecting a twist in tale – or I should say, I’m hoping there will be.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

16 thoughts on “My Friday Post: The Passengers by John Marrs”

  2. This one really does sound like a good, solid dystopian read, Margaret.I give authors credit for creating whole realities like that. I hope you’re enjoying it.

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  6. Sounds absolutely fascinating and chilling.

    We encounter a lot of driverless cars in our neighborhood because there’s a testing facility nearby. I’m not sure I’m on board with the author’s assumptions because in these cars at least, the driver can take over at any time.

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    1. I don’t like the idea of driverless cars. In this book – set in the future! – there are different levels of driverless cars and the highest level are cars with no manual override at all – really scary.

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  8. I’m with the character who thinks “Why does everything these days have to be Smart? ” Because it means people like me end up screaming at the device when it doesn’t work and I don’t understand the technical lingo to have any chance of fixing it….

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