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2312

A small, clever novel obscured rather than enlightened by philosophy, synthesis, analysis and travelogue.

Another textbook disguised as a novel: the first of a projected trilogy from Robinson (Galileo's Dream, 2009, etc.) set in a future similar to that envisioned in his Mars trilogy from the 1990s.

By the 24th century, humanity has established settlements throughout the solar system on terraformed moons and planets and inside habitats hollowed from conveniently orbiting asteroids. Travel to the most remote destination takes mere weeks; quantum computers, qubes, are ubiquitous but have not yet reached true sentience. Former habitat designer Swan Er Hong makes her home on Mercury, where the city of Terminator crawls around the planet on rails, perpetually keeping just ahead of the rising sun. Her beloved grandmother, Alex, has just died. Two individuals, diminutive investigator Jean Genette and Wahram, a huge, froglike negotiator, wonder whether Swan's recently deceased, beloved grandmother Alex left any information about her work—Alex studied Earth which, despite mass emigration, remains a basket case of environmental degradation, climate change and vampire capitalism. Then Swan, who has a qube named Pauline inside her head and once swallowed a cocktail of alien bacteria from Enceladus, and Wahram narrowly escape when Terminator is destroyed by an undetectable shower of meteorites directed from somewhere in space. Seems Alex, who distrusted qubes and all forms of electronic communication, had good reason for her paranoia: apart from the mysterious group who destroyed Terminator, somebody is building humanoid bodies operated by qubes, for purposes none of the three can guess. Other than Robinson's usual novelistic virtues, the narrative offers a grand tour of the inhabited worlds, often to excess, plus padding with 18 future-factual "extracts" to fill in the background, 15 rather bizarre "lists" (e.g. space accidents, propulsion systems) and three passages representing the mental processes of the humanoid qubes.

A small, clever novel obscured rather than enlightened by philosophy, synthesis, analysis and travelogue.

Pub Date: May 22, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-316-09812-0

Page Count: 576

Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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

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A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.

In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

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