An imaginatively conceived tale of the future.
The latest chapter in an ongoing series set in a dystopian America in which the sexes are at war.
In the new novella from Beaudoin (Sex Wars 2084 Book Two, 2014, etc.), an army of “ultra-feminist” women have succeeded in driving a large group of men into hiding in the rugged wilderness of northern Florida. There, they live in secret encampments to avoid indoctrination into what they consider a feminist society gone berserk. The ultrafeminists sneeringly refer to this fugitive enclave as “the Wild Men,” but when a thermonuclear war suddenly wipes out most of the world’s other males—and renders many of the survivors sterile—the women are forced to change their behavior. The Wild Men’s wilderness shelters protected them from disabling radiation, and they therefore now represent humankind’s sole chance for survival. A protracted war arises, and to circumvent these hostilities, the ultrafeminists develop a series of female clones specifically designed to entice the Wild Men into mating (and equipped to force them, if necessary). Beaudoin’s third volume picks up in the middle of this conflict. Two formerly brainwashed ultrafeminist clones, Chontelle and Dominique, have learned to live their lives in the natural world with the Wild Men. The men have captured three women conditioned to support the ultrafeminist cause—and as the novella’s action opens, Wild Man leader Frederick, Chontelle and Dominique are trying to convince them of the rightness of old-fashioned gender relationships. Beaudoin tells the unfolding story mostly in dialogue, in a playlike format that’s occasionally broken up by Dominique’s first-person narration. Although some of the characters are prone to speechifying at length, the overall format keeps the plot developments moving briskly along. The book’s larger implications, of course—particularly regarding feminism—will no doubt irritate some of Beaudoin’s potential readers; it’s difficult, for example, to imagine many women enjoying this story, which is a sort of reverse-image of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Nevertheless, there’s a good deal of engaging discussion about gender stereotypes (“Men live with the face they’re born with while women have to put on their face each morning”) and social roles here.
An imaginatively conceived tale of the future.Pub Date: April 17, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
