Book Review: Exoskeleton IV: Revenant by Shane Stadler

Exoskeleton IV: Revenant – it’s finally here, and finally I am freed up enough to read it. A series of books I started a decade ago with Exoskeleton, written by Shane Stadler and released in 2012, reaches its conclusion with the 4th entry.

It has been a twisting, exciting and complex journey, with Exoskeleton, the series. Starting off back in 2012 with the remarkable debut novel for Shane Stadler, Exoskeleton wowed me with a horror/science fiction story that was extremely dark and disgusting at times. In 2015, the sequel was released, titled Tympanum before 2019 brought the third chapter with Omniscient and now, here we are with Revenant by the talented Shane Stadler.

Shane Stadler grew up in Wisconsin. He holds a PHD in experimental physics and is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University where he teaches and carries out research on novel magnetic materials. He has published nearly 200 papers in scientific journals and co-authors a leading physics textbook. Shane Stadler grew up in southern Wisconsin. After graduating from Beloit College (WI) in 1992, he earned a Ph.D. in experimental physics at Tulane University in 1998. He has since worked at numerous government research and defence laboratories and was/is a professor of physics at Louisiana State University.

An expert in science and experimental science writing fiction rooted in science and future experimental science is a key factor in Exoskeleton’s success to me. Essentially an expert on the field gives most of these stories a believable quality no matter how unbelievable it all gets.

Let’s give you a quick recap of what Exoskeleton is about. Now bear with me. This is some tale. William Thomson, facing a prison sentence and pretty much suicidal, gets enrolled on an experiment as a way of securing his freedom through the prison service. That ends up being the catalyst for the whole story. The experiment is not a standard one. Will is chucked into an exoskeleton and tortured horrifically. A continuation of historical torturing, including by the Nazi’s, in an effort to cause enough distress on a human body that the soul would choose to leave it. A form of separation that would allow the soul to leave and re-join a body at will.

Crazy right? Well, it works, kick starting a chain of events that brings secret organisations into play along with different governments. All who have been trying to achieve the same results. That makes Will a very popular man. Some who want to use him, others who would rather he be killed then in the hands of other groups. Will learns to fight, learns to protect himself as agents and assassins close in on him. Eventually he falls in with a group who do appear to be trying to help ending with a trip to Antarctica, an underground base, an undersea beacon and advanced technology.

It is here where Will finally realises his purpose, entering an underground beacon in his separated state, he meets an advanced being known as The Judge. The Judge explains that basically humanity is now on a countdown and that the end is coming. As Will and his friends battle for both their own and humanities existence, it becomes apparent that Will can save everyone, but to do so, he has to leave. He steps through the beacon, the world is presumably saved, and we enter book 4, Revenant.

Book 4 continues the stories twisting expansiveness starting with Will waking up onboard a spacecraft, one of extremely advanced technology, where he appears to be alone save for extremely advanced AI and recreations of the human world. A mammoth ship named Exodus 9, a utopian replica of earth with all its mod cons, but clean and correct. Restaurants, gyms, cinemas and all the best facilities. Medical care, therapy, sports and hobby facilities – anything you want is provided for you onboard. Even companionship, of sorts, simulations really of humans – but so advanced that it is difficult to tell the difference. Sims that have lives, jobs, hobbies of their own some of which include looking after Will.

Doctors, therapists, guides and more look after Will, who appears to be at peak condition, looking younger, stronger healthier. This is really a place of pure perfection and Will can hardly fathom what has happened upon using the beacon to leave Earth. The one, massive question, on a ship clearly built to cater for 1000’s, is why is he alone? The other, what happened to Earth and his loved ones left behind.

With the assistance of the returning figure, Landau, Will attempts to gain understanding of his surroundings, where he is, why he is and how he can get back home. Meanwhile at home, we follow the stories of our familiar cast as they deal with the loss of Will and arrival of the same existential threat Will’s departure was meant to stave off in a story that started in a single cell with a man trying to stay alive and ended with a man trying to save a universe.

I really do love this series. It ticks all the boxes from a suspense, science fiction and horror perspective though it has moved quite firmly into Sci Fi now, especially here in Revenant where the horror is really side stepped, and we are firmly into galactic science fiction. I feel like Revenant was a fitting end to the series though and while the mass sci-fi style is not my preference, and it is a little disappointing to end in such a style considering where we started, it certainly fits the story arc well and does offer closure.

A little bit of me feels that Shane Stadler did me dirty here in the same way a band may release a death metal album, get me excited and make me a fan before their follow up was nu-metal. That isn’t to say that Exoskeleton was never science fiction – of course it was, massively. But it also contained horror elements which have now disappeared from sight. So, I am not over the moon with the book’s eventual direction, but I do very much enjoy the story still and the series is clever, thought provoking and exciting.

The characters are well developed, as you would expect after 4 books. There are some other disappointments in how some character arcs are closed out – Lenny in particular may as well have not bothered reappearing here. I also felt Revenant was a little over descriptive, especially in trying to get home the message of how utopian the Exodus 9 was. I get the description was to give it scale, I get that it was to make Will’s choice about returning home more difficult but there are way too many pages focused on Will playing football or drinking coffee. Still, despite all of those niggling issues, I feel satisfied. I feel content.

I still would massively and confidently recommend the Exoskeleton series to any reader of fiction. It is a wonderfully insightful series, a mostly intriguing and thought-provoking final instalment with a plethora of fleshed out and deep characters.

Shane Stadler Links

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