Though there are a few historical missteps, readers who savor the patient accumulation of detail around each scenario will...
Wrapping up the author’s latest alternate-history trilogy (Fallout, 2016, etc.), in which he explores the question: what if Truman had used nuclear weapons in the Korean War?
Turtledove provides just enough detail to keep us apprised of the overall picture. By 1952, major cities in Europe, the USSR, China, and the U.S. lie in ruins. America and Germany are allies trying to repulse a Soviet attack, while Soviet satellites states rise up in rebellion. President Harry Truman, still in office after two Russian A-bombs wiped out Washington and the Pentagon and mourning the loss of his family, presides over a makeshift government in Philadelphia, dickering with Eisenhower to stay in power until elections can be organized while plotting to take out Stalin. For those who must continue to fight, or live with the consequences, the struggle for survival goes on. Those familiar with Turtledove’s distinctive approach know themes such as race, religion, politics, and the reality of interminable warfare will get a workout, while the story’s focus remains on ordinary characters and how they cope with their particular circumstances. Unreconstructed former Waffen-SS Capt. Rolf Mehlen fights with America against Soviet invaders. In Britain, USAF bomber pilot Bruce McNulty mourns the loss of his beloved and wrestles with guilt over his part in the killing of millions. In South Korea—yes, the war drags on; unleashing nuclear weapons made not a scrap of difference—Capt. Cade Curtis schemes to bring to America the young Korean soldier who saved his life. In California, appliance installer Aaron Finch tries to build a life in the aftermath of atomic bombing. Luisa Hozzel, a German hausfrau, wonders if she will survive the Siberian gulag.
Though there are a few historical missteps, readers who savor the patient accumulation of detail around each scenario will by now be thoroughly addicted.Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-39076-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
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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