Meet the new “bionic man” in 

David E. Steven’s

Resurrect

Monarch

The Story

Preventing his burning fighter from crashing into a residential neighborhood, Navy Commander Josh Logan ejects too late, suffering lethal injuries. He awakes to a voice that offers him an option-death, or a new life and mission. The mission? Access and employ highly classified military technology to stop a global cataclysm. The price? Everyone he knows, including his new bride, will believe him dead and buried.

One year later, Josh wakes up in a city hospital as a John Doe. His memory is intact but his appearance is altered, his abilities enhanced. With no proof of the cataclysm, no contact with his benefactors, and no identity, he fakes amnesia . . . and questions his sanity.

His beautiful, computer-savvy neuro-ICU nurse, having recently lost her husband, feels empathy for Josh and is drawn to the mystery he represents. They work together to establish his identity, fighting a mutual attraction.

Unable to access the information needed, Josh cleverly creates a counterfeit classified program and uses it to penetrate the highest levels of the military. Once inside, he recruits an elite team to develop the world’s most powerful weapon, supposedly to protect mankind. But the more he learns, as the clock counts down to the end of the world, the more he questions who, or what, is behind his resurrection.

Introducing Josh & Elizabeth!

Brief physical description

Commander Josh Logan and Elizabeth Edvardsen are the key protagonists.

After a crash, Navy Commander Josh Logan is given a new genetic “blend” body. He’s not superhuman but his body incorporates the best genes from the human race. Therefore, he appears as if he might have a great grandparent from every continent. Most who meet him, assume he’s of their race with some mixed ancestry.

His nurse, Elizabeth describes her John Doe patient. “Why were men so squeamish when it came to blood and needles? As he carefully studied the wall, she studied him. He had short, curly, dark hair with unusual, almost red, highlights. His skin was a nice mocha color. He had a strong jaw which gave him a good masculine face, very handsome but approachable. His eyes were gray – no, actually, they were a color she’d never seen. They looked as though someone had mixed all the eye colors in a blender, sort of a steel-gray with flecks of brown, green, and blue mixed in, beautiful and intense. … As she pulled the EKG leads off his chest, she thought he definitely had the body of a professional athlete. He could have been Michelangelo’s model for David. When he arrived as an unconscious John Doe, they’d literally checked every square inch of his body for identifying marks. His skin was perfect. It wouldn’t have been out of place on a kid … but even kids had inoculation marks.”

Elizabeth Edverdson is usually found wearing scrubs as a Neuro Intensive Care Unit nurse. Her newly conscious patient, Josh describes her: “He wasn’t going to watch her draw his blood again, so this time he studied her. With a cute dimpled smile, she had the proverbial girl-next-door beauty, mixed with exotic, dark eyes. She was about five-foot nine, with blonde hair but an olive complexion. She had an athletic build and carried herself with confidence, which he always found attractive.”

Resembles…

That’s tough because of the genetic blend. Whoever is cast, would probably require makeup or CG effects.

A thirty-three year old Keanu Reeves (who has some Asian and Polynesian ancestry), might work with different hair, eye and skin color.

Since Keanu isn’t thirty-three anymore, I need help. The blog readers may have a better candidate. Based on the description, who do you think might work? It’s important since Resurrect has been optioned for a movie.

Elizabeth Edvardsen might look a bit like Leona Lewis.

Strengths and weaknesses

Josh’s Strengths: Josh’s new body is a genetic construct. His physical capabilities, while not unique, are one in a million. He has exceptional vision, hearing, reaction time, IQ, etc. However, he’s still the same inside. He brings a creative analytical mind and has a natural talent for understanding things and people.

Josh’s Weaknesses: He has an engineer’s skepticism  with no faith in things he can’t see, prove or calculate. Despite being reserved, he’s a bit of an adrenaline junky with little patience for details.

Elizabeth’s Strengths: She’s confident, open, loves people and has a very strong Christian faith. Elizabeth is extremely intelligent, and with a father who owned a computer store, she’s also a tech savvy computer wizard.

Elizabeth’s Weaknesses: She can be impulsive, too trusting and, to Josh’s frustration, has no “personal bubble,” She’s open about everything except relationships, having lost her husband to a terrible motorcycle accident.

Quirk (if any)

Josh: He’s good at taking things apart to see how they work, but easily bored, sometimes forgets to put them back together.

Elizabeth: She bites the side of her lip when she’s nervous or when she’s about to do, or say, something she probably shouldn’t.

Your inspiration for the character

Josh’s personality and strengths are an amalgamation of many, including my amazing grandfather, who served in WWI, WWII and in the Peace Corp. Another inspiration was my friend, mentor, and motivational speaker, Jerry Meadows, whose last name Josh takes. Josh gets his background and some experiences from me.

Elizabeth is also an amalgamation of many, but is largely based on my amazing wife (who happens to be sitting next to me ;-).

Background to the story

An adrenaline junky who loved science, I studied engineering and became a Navy fighter pilot. Flying off aircraft carriers, I had some close calls. Intellectually, I knew my profession had a fatality rate of almost one in five, but like most twenty-year-olds, I believed I was immortal. Then, after several years in the fleet, I learned my roommate and close friend had died in a crash. I was no longer immortal.

As my Navy career shifted to flight test, I realized the type of accident that claimed my friend’s life, caused half of all tactical jet fatalities. I designed and patented a new type of altitude warning system, but without credentials or resources, the funding went to more established programs.

The intersection of these life events was a large part of the inspiration behind Resurrect.

I learned no matter how great the threat facing us, unless we experience it directly, it’s not real. This applies to pilots ignoring crashes, but I believe it also applies to societies turning a blind eye to potentially cataclysmic disasters.

No matter how great you may think your idea, to succeed requires passion and the expertise and support of others. To change the world, you’ve got to reach the world.

After spending most of my life as a fighter pilot and a strike planner, I realized I could apply my demolition expertise to potentially save lives … in more ways than one.

Close calls with death, combined with a love for science, have been good motivators for trying to bridge science and Christianity.

While Resurrect is fiction, it accurately portrays real threats facing humanity; threats we can do something about. Inside, it also, very subtly, uses cutting-edge science to make a case for the existence of a supreme being with non-believers.

Relz Reviewz Extras
Visit the Resurrect Trilogy website
Buy Resurrect at Amazon or Koorong