An entertaining, very-special-episode entry of a fine series.
In Lallier’s SF prequel, a human is appointed by aliens to unite a fractious Earth.
By 2182, the people of Earth are exploring the cosmos under the aegis of the Solar Commonwealth, a governmental body led by a sharp, charismatic, and somewhat mysterious man known as the Regent. In this novel, the Regent relates his origin—and that of the Solar Commonwealth—to an aged admiral of his fleet. Initially, the Regent was an anonymous human, plucked from Earth in 2017 by powerful, benevolent aliens who erased much of his memory but granted him enhanced intelligence, longevity, and other advantages. He was then put in charge of a formidable fleet of advanced ships (including one called Enterprise) and some 12 million human troops abducted by aliens over centuries. The Regent must use these to make contact with Earth and unite the peoples of the turbulent planet under a single, progressive authority; otherwise, mankind will be classed as a hopeless case and quarantined. Unlike many humans under his command (including latter-day imperial Roman troops), the Regent wants to find a peaceful way to get Earth to submit. However, his methods not only make him an enemy of China and the United States, but also spawn treachery in his own ranks. Followers of Lallier’s Solar Commonwealth series hopefully consider it one of contemporary SF’s better Star Trek–inspired space operas, and this book will do nothing to dissuade them. It doesn’t follow the Roddenberry blueprint excessively closely, but it’s clearly fueled by that franchise’s optimistic view of an imperfect but diverse, human-led military/scientific federation that uses intelligence, good judgment, and diplomacy. Some readers will be delighted by this prequel’s characterization of the unnamed U.S. president as a Donald Trump–like caricature; he’s an egotistical blowhard surrounded by sycophants and bolstered by right-wing media. It sets up a dynamic that brings to mind James T. Kirk versus Richard Nixon, or Spock against Gen. William Westmoreland. Clever maneuvers and statesmanship keep this prequel cruising at full impulse power, and it will leave readers ready to boldly go back to Lallier’s previous installments.
An entertaining, very-special-episode entry of a fine series.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2020
ISBN: 979-8683832162
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
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
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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