A supercharged, high-stakes cyberpunk thriller.
In Abrams’ SF novel, a billionaire fraudster’s yearning for tech-assisted immortality upends an influencer’s life.
Everybody claims to have their so-called red lines that they’d never cross—but what if a chance to live forever presented itself? That’s the question facing wealthy but ill criminal Chuck Rosti, who’s scheming to steal the Vekhuman technology developed by Roxy Zhang, which will give him a new lease on life, both literally and figuratively. Getting past the fearsome security at ZerQuali, which Roxy founded, presents a challenge, however. Enter Roxy’s ex-boyfriend, Stu Reigns, an idealistic influencer whose perennially ropy finances leave him vulnerable to Chuck’s offer of $3 million to steal the tech. Stu’s complicated history with Roxy gives him all the emotional justification he needs to “find a way to buy some happiness, dammit.” Of course, nothing is simple in a dystopian setting with 96-degree temperatures, overdriven artificial intelligence, and lethal security robots called “Robo-Krupkes.” Before long, Stu winds up mired in double- and triple-crosses, as he must also stay one step ahead of a team of Russian thugs who want the tech for themselves. Fans of cyberpunk SF will find plenty of thrills in these pages, delivered in suitably unapologetic slam-bang fashion by Abrams: “The Robo-Krupke zipped five feet off-angle, whipped around, and fired one shot….The metallic smell of blood stained the air.” An additional twist comes from a series of hyperlinks (“ONLY CLICK IF YOU'RE FEELING ULTRA-NERDY”) that readers may click for deeper dives into characters’ backstories, defining scenes, and assorted ephemera, if they’re so inclined—or they may simply enjoy the white-knuckled ride as it stands, from the safety of their armchairs. Either way, the outcome should amply satisfy aficionados of alternative, tech-centered SF.
A supercharged, high-stakes cyberpunk thriller.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798327070943
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Solstice Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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