A deeply intelligent tale about intelligence itself, and the hurdles science must clear to see the light of day.
An archeologist working in Kazakhstan is presented with a discovery that could prove revolutionary, but taking it public proves unexpectedly fraught in Linden’s novel.
In the hope of landing a full professorship in the anthropology department at Rushmere University, Dr. Claire Knowland accepts a research position on a dig in Kazakhstan investigating the domestication of ancient horses. Her “true passion” is the study of animal intelligence, but as a 32-year-old adjunct, she is willing, however begrudgingly, to make concessions to secure professional advancement. An unexpected discovery piques her interest: Rob Rebolet, the chief of security for the Transteppe mining company, reports that one of his geologists, Russian Sergei Anachev, has found something peculiar—a grouping of “enormous bones” far too large to belong to horses that seem purposefully arrayed in a place where elephants never roamed. The bones predate the rise of any human ancestor, provocatively challenging the accepted scientific interpretations of the evolutionary emergence of intelligence on Earth, a gripping possibility lucidly explained by the author: “If the bones were not arrayed by some ancient human ancestor, could they represent the rise of intelligence in some other mammalian line, which became extinct many millions of years ago? Given the long sweep of life on earth, if evolution could produce intelligence once, could it have produced it more than once?” Such an explosive discovery will almost certainly be commandeered by the profoundly corrupt Kazakh government, and the examination of the bones is waylaid by the violent outbreak of civil war. Sergei is also menaced by Andrei Bezanov, a cruel Russian oligarch with a longstanding grudge against him who aims to take over Transteppe, thereby gaining control of the region’s valuable phosphorite reserves.
The novel deftly combines a dramatically powerful story with a thrilling scientific possibility, one made impressively accessible by the author. The story ranges from an assassin’s attempt on Claire and Sergei’s lives to searching discussions of the nature of intelligence and its mysterious appearance in the world, which is made even more inscrutable by the fact that human beings seem to have a monopoly on its possession (though Sergei’s findings undermine that assumption). As Dr. Keerbrock, another scientist, puts it to Claire: “Why only us? If rapid environmental change is a driver of intelligence, why don’t we find a bunch of other smart animals?” Some of the literary elements of the novel are questionable—Sergei’s history of acrimony with Bezanov feels convoluted and contrived, and Bezanov is something of a cartoonish villain, brimming with outsized evil plans and fantasies of revenge. Additionally, the eventfulness of the tale sometimes takes a turn for the formulaic; some of the violence depicted seems culled from popular cinema, and is more canned than exhilarating. Nonetheless, Claire is a memorable hero, as smart as she is empathetic, and Sergei is a profoundly complex character, one with an extraordinary grasp of science and a prudent sense of human nature. This is an immersive tale that is both intellectually enlivening and genuinely entertaining.
A deeply intelligent tale about intelligence itself, and the hurdles science must clear to see the light of day.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 9781948122375
Page Count: 336
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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
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