An engaging sci-fi dystopia of the drop-dead gorgeous.
Seven tenuously linked short stories set in a futuristic society in which advanced technology perpetuates illusions of physical beauty and youth.
Rose offers short sci-fi narratives of various lengths centered on the “constructed universe” of BeautyWorld—a future Earth in which science and vanity intersect to cater to ideas of physical perfection. It goes beyond mere cosmetics and plastic surgery: people wear high-tech bodysuits that synchronize with neural implants so that everyone sees everyone else at their most alluring—as long as the hardware and software function. One ironic exception to the artifice is the fact that supermodels are expected to be as naturally flawless as possible; they’re consequently used up and discarded by their early 20s. The story “Supernova” concerns one such fashion tragedy, 20-year-old Mink, who manages to turn her descent into pill-popping and catty photo-shoot feuds into something more lasting due to the intercession of a macabre designer called “Skull.” “Clover Fields Forever” traces the downward spiral of Clover, 29, a vapid fashion-industry hanger-on whose selfish spending and careless job performance lead inexorably to her downfall—hardly atypical in a money-and-looks-are-everything culture. Some of these tales offer old news about beauty being only skin-deep. However, Rose still wrings a surprising amount of drama from what threatens to be a one-gimmick premise. For example, “Death Mask” tells the story of 90-year-old Beetle, a mortician with the delicate task of handling the dead in a society that desperately shies away from death; he finds new purpose when he meets the lonely daughter of a late fashion photographer. Overall, Rose delivers some unexpectedly profound character evolutions. Genre fans may be intrigued, or perhaps disappointed, that despite all the talk of pheromones, voluptuousness, and desire, the stories’ references to sex remain coy, barely reaching PG-13 levels.
An engaging sci-fi dystopia of the drop-dead gorgeous.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5197-1162-5
Page Count: 428
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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