Sex and violence-packed crime/sci fi hybrid about a guy and his family getting alien powers. Not my thing, but it read quickly. Would have felt a little better as a paperback original than as a $25 hardcover, the industry is weird. Maybe not the best place for me to start with Mosley. ( )

Well-written prose and an interesting protagonist who's been "gifted" by intergalactic beings with extraordinary powers to accomplish a task that's developed along the way. The premise is intriguing and the plot moves the story forward relentlessly. It's a short, but powerful read. Despite the heavy nature of the story there is some dark humor in it. ( )

Touched is one of the latest of Walter Mosley's sixty books. This one reminds me of the kind of science-fiction/fantasy tales I read in the 1950s.

It's told in the first person by a man who wakes up in his own bed, next to his wife, from a partly remembered dream that may have lasted a thousand years.
He knows he has a mission, that he is in his own body, and so is another, probably more powerful, being. He feels he is to be part of either saving or destroying humanity, and maybe all the universe.

Much action ensues. ( )

What a strange and chaotic novella. I admit I was a bit skeptical of the premise; humanity as a disease upon Nature or the World is a played-out idea. But this story took it in some interesting directions. The main character is 1 of 107 people selected to address the problem of life throwing the universe off course, each of whom is given a different direction to go about this. Martin is given the ability to use his blood or his bites to infect and change people with this new knowledge of the universe. He’s also saddled with a second personality who acts as a super-powered warrior devoted to this cause even at the expense of other people’s lives. The only other of the 107 who appears gets the mission of wiping out life on Earth and death-based powers to make it happen. I kind of wish there had been more of these chosen humans in this book, so it would be a little more complex than Life v. Death, but the book is only so long. There was a lot jammed into it already. ( )