February 18, 2026 - fundinmentalfundinmental

MY REVIEW

Gotta love Chance. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The Zone: Fallen Son by Stu Jones, is the second book in this cyberpunk series. It is filled with fast paced action and the stakes are high. The battles are brutal, savage, and many lives will be lost.

Everything revolves around Chance, a father, a son, a hero. His son is ill and he will do anything to get the treatment his child needs, but when he is taken, he will also do anything to get him back.

It all begins in Neo Terminus, where Chance had taken down the Zone, a walled off area in the middle of the city where Enforcers, nano boosted gladiators, would fight to the death. He finds out his son has been taken to a distant city, New West City, and he will have to partner up with an unlikely ally. He will face betrayal and hordes of mutant humans.

Action and adventure, life and death, thought provoking moments, The Zone engulfed me in rapid fire reading, flipping pages, caught up, unable to look away. BUT..the story is not done. Chance may have completed one mission, but his son is still missing, being used as a bargaining chip by High Director Marko Senterian. I can hardly wait to see what happens next.

AMAZON SYNOPSIS

In the shadow of Neo Terminus, a father’s desperation becomes his only weapon.

Chance Griffin—super cop, fallen gladiator, hunted fugitive—will stop at nothing to rescue his kidnapped infant son. Even if that means tracking down and confronting the Glom’s shadowy masters.

But he can’t do it alone.

To save his child, Chance must forge an uneasy alliance with a ruthless adversary—a villain whose hands drip with the blood of Chance’s friends. Together, they’ll journey beyond the neon streets of Neo Terminus to the lawless frontier of New West City, where even legends are broken.

With each fractured step Chance is drawn deeper into a web of manipulation and betrayal, stretching the fragile thread connecting him to the life he left behind—to a wife whose face may soon fade from memory.

As Neo Terminus burns behind him and New West City looms ahead, Chance knows he can’t let the wasteland claim what’s left of his soul. He is more than the Glom’s former star Enforcer, their fallen son.

He is a father, a husband. A hero.

AWARDS for The Zone
Gold Medal(1st Place) Winner – The Bookfest Awards – Cyberpunk Category
Honorable Mention – Reader’s Favorite Awards – Science Fiction Category
Finalist – Best Thriller Book Awards – Science Fiction
Finalist – IAN Book of the Year Awards – Science Fiction
Semi-Finalist – Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards – Science Fiction
Approved Seal – Indie Reader

Genre: Action And Advenure, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller
402 pages, Kindle
Published: 2.17.26 by Dropship Publishing
Series: The Zone #2

ABOUT STU JONES

Stu Jones. SWAT Sniper. Adventurer. Award-Winning Author of Epic Genre-Bending Fiction.

A veteran law enforcement officer, Stu has served as a beat cop, narcotics, criminal investigations, as an instructor of firearms and police defensive tactics and as a team leader of a multi-jurisdictional SWAT team. He is trained and qualified as a law enforcement SWAT sniper, as well as in hostage rescue and high-risk entry tactics. Recently, Stu served for three years with a U.S. Marshal’s Regional Fugitive Task Force – hunting the worst of the worst.

He is the author of multiple sci-fi/action/thriller novels, including the multi-award-winning It Takes Death To Reach A Star duology, written with co-author Gareth Worthington (Children of the Fifth Sun).

Known for his character-driven stories and blistering action sequences, Stu strives to create thought-provoking reading experiences that challenge the status quo. When he’s not chasing bad guys or writing epic stories, he can be found planning his next adventure to some remote or exotic place.

Stu is represented by Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo-Helin-Fountain literary