A considerable novel populated by a cast of memorable characters, who enhance the Mars backdrop instead of depending on it.
A young man on a Mars colony evades corrupt agents of Earth and learns the truth of his origins in the author’s debut sci-fi/action novel.
Thom is like any other teen—he excels at sports and is contemplating his future. He’s also living on Mars. But after his grandfather dies, everything changes. Thom, a possible suspect, is questioned by authorities. Things only get worse. Two men try to kidnap him and kill his friends, and Thom learns that a bounty hunter, Myron, has been enlisted to track him down. All of his woes can be traced to a war with Martian natives known as the Velitrans, and Thom finds unlikely allies in fighting the Eua, the unquestionably shady government of Earth. Marsh’s plot speeds along with plenty of action scenes, which include one when Elaine—the sister of one of Thom’s friends—escapes captivity and helps Rosha, who leads Thom, et al., to the Velitrans. But it’s the environment and characters that make the book a standout. Mars is a well-established home. It has its own sport, called "endurance," which is essentially a race between teams armed with electrically charged sticks; its own vehicles, such as a “floater”; and its own profanity—the term “fugging” and its variants are a popular word choice. Characters are likable all around, even the villains—the world-weary Detective Cooper-Fonda is so desperate for control he gives himself the call sign of “Boss.” Desmond, “Desi” to his friends, is perhaps the book’s best character. He supplies much of the humor, incessantly complaining that people don’t bother to learn his name, but he’s also a skilled programmer, rewriting a com’s operating system in mere minutes, and has ties to the main plot—Myron grabs Desi first before looking for Thom. The work includes enjoyable add-ons like a bad guy identified by a discernible wound (a defensive bite from Elaine), as well as a bulky second-to-last chapter, with multiple characters converging for a searing action set piece.
A considerable novel populated by a cast of memorable characters, who enhance the Mars backdrop instead of depending on it.Pub Date: July 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478279068
Page Count: 272
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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