Scion

Scion was originally marketed as "a world in which the wealthy elite have developed a way to live forever. That's all good, except when the planet's resources start to run out Enter the assassins...". This blurb made me expect a riff on something similar to Neal Shusterman’s Scythe. However, while the components of the description exist in the novel, it spends less time on the general conflict between assassins and the wealthy elite, focusing instead on a single assassin hired to protect an elderly woman.

Azure is that single assassin, living in a world where taking out paid hits on "lifers"—the elites who live forever—is perfectly legal. Fresh off a successful job, he is transported to his next assignment, but it is far from typical. First, he is there to protect rather than kill. Second, his client, Jasa, is an elderly woman and clearly not a "lifer." Finally, the assignment is completely off the grid: his bosses do not know his location, and he cannot connect to his sentient AI assistant.

Someone is determined to kill Jasa, however, and she has seemingly hand-selected Azure to be her protector, albeit with those unorthodox conditions. Azure pushes back on the restrictions—especially the block of his AI—but Jasa offers an irresistible carrot: keep her alive for two weeks, and she will reveal what really happened four years ago during an incident that altered the trajectory of his life. Motivated by the chance to get answers, Azure accepts her unusual rules, and the job begins.

It doesn't take long for the assassins to arrive, and so the initial marketed premise holds true, but Islington uses this hook to build an intriguing cyberpunk world and a multi-layered mystery. The story blends high-octane action with a gradual reveal of secrets, grounded in dystopian world-building and lightly explained technology. At a brisk 240 pages (from an author whose books are usually three times that length), the narrative skips heavy exposition to focus on the immediate plot.

And it works, for the most part. Readers are whisked along at a fast pace; just as you catch your breath, another attack jolts you back into the action. In the acknowledgments, Islington notes that Scion began as a break from writing his Hierarchy series (which is excellent, by the way), and because of that, "and because it's different to and much shorter than my other books, I wasn't even necessarily planning to publish it in the beginning." Encouragement from friends and his agent ultimately brought it to light.

While Scion reads somewhat like a side project, it has enough strong foundational elements that make it better than that description suggests. The novel sets up a clear path for future installments. My hope is that the sequel gets the full-length treatment—with no corners cut or loose ends left dangling—allowing this side project to evolve into another fully realized series.