The journey is great; the destination somewhat disappointing.
Political and personal dramas unfold at a traveling space hotel.
The Grand Abeona Hotel—essentially a cruise ship in space—trundles from planet to planet. It’s not nearly as glamorous as it used to be, but it’s a welcome refuge to regular guests and to staffers who have escaped poverty, military service, criminal prosecution, and/or the crushing fist of the autocratic government to make it their home. Now, their settled existences are on the verge of catastrophic change. The attendees of an academic conference held onboard every year, which is usually a boondoggle, are urgently tasked with decoding a mysterious message. Spies have sneaked onship in search of a mysterious figure known as the Lamplighter, who issues seditious dispatches about the 500-year-old Emperor and the corrupt aristocrats of his court. If the Lamplighter isn’t found by the time the ship exits deep space, imperial authorities will arrest the entire hotel staff. What is the message? Who and where is the Lamplighter? And is hotel manager Carl really as kind—and as oblivious—as he appears to be? Initially this looks like a cozy SF story about found family, set among the colorfully rendered staff and guests of a large establishment in the vein of many British period dramas. But the narrative rapidly turns toward thriller, and some of the secrets that these characters hold are very dark. That swerve is both intriguing and entertaining, but unfortunately, it doesn’t quite pay off. The resolution to the central conflict comes across as rushed, not appropriately cathartic, and doesn’t resolve much other than the immediate situation. It’s unclear whether this book is a stand-alone or the first in a series. If the former, the author leaves a great deal of plot threads and budding relationships dangling; if the latter, even the promise of future installments would not entirely compensate for these lacks. In particular, a more detailed backstory for the Lamplighter (in contrast to the beautifully detailed pasts of the other characters) would have been appreciated, especially as a large political crisis still looms.
The journey is great; the destination somewhat disappointing.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780756419301
Page Count: 304
Publisher: DAW
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.
Second part of an alien-contact trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, 2014) from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In the previous book, the inhabitants of Trisolaris, a planet with three suns, discovered that their planet was doomed and that Earth offered a suitable refuge. So, determined to capture Earth and exterminate humanity, the Trisolarans embarked on a 400-year-long interstellar voyage and also sent sophons (enormously sophisticated computers constructed inside the curled-up dimensions of fundamental particles) to spy on humanity and impose an unbreakable block on scientific advance. On Earth, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization formed to help the invaders, despite knowing the inevitable outcome. Humanity’s lone advantage is that Trisolarans are incapable of lying or dissimulation and so cannot understand deceit or subterfuge. This time, with the Trisolarans a few years into their voyage, physicist Ye Wenjie (whose reminiscences drove much of the action in the last book) visits astronomer-turned-sociologist Luo Ji, urging him to develop her ideas on cosmic sociology. The Planetary Defense Council, meanwhile, in order to combat the powerful escapist movement (they want to build starships and flee so that at least some humans will survive), announces the Wallfacer Project. Four selected individuals will be accorded the power to command any resource in order to develop plans to defend Earth, while the details will remain hidden in the thoughts of each Wallfacer, where even the sophons can't reach. To combat this, the ETO creates Wallbreakers, dedicated to deducing and thwarting the plans of the Wallfacers. The chosen Wallfacers are soldier Frederick Tyler, diplomat Manuel Rey Diaz, neuroscientist Bill Hines, and—Luo Ji. Luo has no idea why he was chosen, but, nonetheless, the Trisolarans seem determined to kill him. The plot’s development centers on Liu’s dark and rather gloomy but highly persuasive philosophy, with dazzling ideas and an unsettling, nonlinear, almost nonnarrative structure that demands patience but offers huge rewards.
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7708-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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