A satisfying outer-space yarn of redemption under fire.
A young woman from a prominent 23rd-century Earth family avoids prison by enlisting in a term of off-planet service in Alexander’s SF novel.
Two centuries in the future, humankind has discovered reliable, faster-than-light space travel. No alien civilizations have been discovered yet, but there’s still plenty of danger, intrigue, and open warfare, due to humanity’s baser instincts. An underfunded, upstart military police force called “Peacemakers,” or “peacers,” tries to impose order and enact justice. On Earth, 20-year-oldSaoirse Kenneally, hailing from a clan that became wealthy by selling space-friendly computer technology, is a self-loathing alcohol abuser and troublemaker, though she draws the line at taking “zombie,” or “zombipterisin”—an addictive, extraterrestrial psychotropic drug. For her latest violation,which involves charges of attempted robbery and assault, Saoirse is disowned by her relatives but gets around serving jail time by accepting two years of off-world service. At a base orbiting Saturn’s moon Titan, she finds a degree of discipline and even sobriety via basic training and mentoring by Tomasz Szczechowicz, a battle-hardened, veteran peacer who’s closed-mouthed about his past and takes a strong personal interest in Saoirse. When she notes anomalies in the station’s computer records, she becomes part of the investigation; eventually she’s forced to flee even deeper into settled space, where she encounters a simmering conflict involving peacers on a colonized world. This novel’s resourceful, underdog protagonist, who’s inwardly tormented but always ready to fight, will remind readers a bit of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander—although Saoirse has a tattoo of a snake, not a dragon. It’s a somewhat formulaic story of a badly flawed protagonist gaining wisdom and maturity while wearing a uniform, but Alexander makes it earn its stripes. The future setting lacks cyborgs, godlike AIs, teleportation, or easy plot devices; rather, there are more relatable elements, including bullets, light planes, and microphones; the clever explanation is that the principle planetary setting has recreated an old Eastern European society, out of a sense of ethnic and cultural pride, and thus lacks modern gadgets. The finale features well-described, edge-of-your-seat combat and intelligent strategy.
A satisfying outer-space yarn of redemption under fire.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9993257-8-0
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Alton Kremer
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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