A brisk and highly entertaining technothriller with a diverse cast.
Brilliant young adults from around the world use their gear and abilities to thwart an international threat in this prospective New Adult series-starter.
Adam Eberhardt, a 20-something German chemistry researcher at a Swiss research university, clumsily knocks over a row of flasks while assisting with the presentation of 24-year-old fellow researcher Margot Czarnecki. That’s not so unusual, especially for him, but he’s alarmed when, shortly afterward, he spots some men abducting Margot. Then a U.S. Army general suddenly shows up and puts Adam on a jet, with little explanation. Adam soon meets six talented people around the same age as he is, including French fighter pilot Jacki Schulté; soccer player Hala El-Mallawany from Cairo; and skilled chess player Guowei Zhang from Shanghai. The group winds up in a training facility in an undisclosed location, where they meet a man they all know well: a former geneticist who’s now working with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Task Force. To Adam, he’s Baba, who’s like a surrogate father to him, but the others each know him “by a different name or in a different way.” Apparently, the young people are clones of notable historical figures; Adam, it’s revealed, is the clone of Albert Einstein (with a bit of genetic enhancement for increased muscle development, among other traits). The man Adam knows as Baba asks the group to use their skills to take down a terrorist organization called the Allied Rebel Koalition, which has recently been kidnapping nuclear scientists, including Margot. The seven new teammates start training in hand-to-hand combat and the use of weaponry, but it’s not long before ARK targets them; they’re also after a mysterious 4-year-old named Yusef. The seven aim to protect the boy and decipher ARK’s ultimate plan.
Clark’s tale moves at an impressive pace, quickly and skillfully introducing the immensely likable Adam, who’s admiration of Margot over the last three years gives him plenty of incentive to find her. Each of the seven cloned youngsters gets snippets of backstory, and their individual personalities shine. Computer-savvy American Brandon Freeman, for example, provides comic relief with his endearingly half-baked remarks (“Yeah, but it makes you think….And he who thinks is a penny earned,” he muses at one point). This opening series installment is loaded with mysteries, such as how all the lab-created characters ended up with their respective families, and why Yusef is an important part of ARK’s nefarious plan. The villains behind ARK are revealed early on, but even they have surprising secrets. There are copious action scenes throughout, featuring Adam and the others engaging in fisticuffs, gunfights, and car chases. Clark keeps the violence from getting too graphic and never lingers on its aftermath. The Task Force also uses an assortment of chic tech, including pliable boron carbide armor; lightning-rod tasers that cause temporary paralysis; and iGlasses, contact lenses that allow easy, hands-free internet access; various players employ these gadgets to great effect. The story ends with gratifying and welcome resolution, although a sequel is in the works.
A brisk and highly entertaining technothriller with a diverse cast.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 367
Publisher: Quark Legacy
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.
When a bunch of corporate assholes mark their planet for destruction, a garage band of colonists must defend their home world with the power of rock.
Slightly sidestepping his frenetic litRPG—literary role-playing game—doorstoppers, here Dinniman takes on capitalism, propaganda, xenophobia, and violence as entertainment. Thankfully for readers, it’s all wrapped in the usual profane, adolescent humor, and SF readers will have a ball. A couple of hundred years after they left Earth, the inhabitants of the interstellar colony of New Sonora weren’t expecting much in the way of new threats, especially after a mysterious illness killed almost everyone between the ages of 30 and 60. That disaster left only the young and the old on the populated planet, where farming is enabled by highly accelerated AI and people are generally cool with each other. But when drummer Oliver Lewis stumbles across a foul-mouthed killer mech piloted by a child, he realizes that something’s definitely fishy. Earth, it seems, has classified the New Sonorans as non-human and scheduled their destruction as a paid, five-day combat game. Apex Industries, led by lead mercenary Eli Opel, has reverse-engineered Ender’s Game and is turning loose its players with real bullets and bombs on the population of New Sonora. The resistance is a weird bunch, led by proto-slacker Oliver; his little sister, Lulu; and his ex-girlfriend, documentary filmmaker and burgeoning revolutionary Rosita Zapatero, as well as the other members of Oliver’s band, the Rhythm Mafia. Thankfully, they also have Roger, the last functioning AI on the planet, though Oliver’s grandfather permanently programmed it to nannybot mode as a dying joke. Call the book overlong—the battle scenes often feel like watching someone play a videogame—but the humor and the execution are cutting without being mean and there’s almost always a point.
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9780593820308
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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