An impressively creative blend of political intrigue and sci-fi drama partially undermined by unconvincing premises.
A political thriller portrays a future world on the brink of war as a result of a religious conflict.
Dr. Diana Scorsi is a deeply philosophical technological genius who develops a program, Symmetra, which appears to synthesize all the world’s religious knowledge into a single, higher-order spirituality. She plans to give it away to everyone on the planet for free, as she’s motivated less by profit than philanthropic commitment. Then she’s kidnapped by Ravelton Parlay, an enigmatic trillionaire who’s motivated by Christian extremism and capitalistic opportunism, combined as “Christian Consumerism.” Tuck Squires is assigned to track her down, as he works for Internal Defense, a future version of the CIA. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool “Traditionalist,” a Christian believer who’s devoted to the ideal of American exceptionalism as a tonic to world chaos. The geopolitical scene that debut author Baumeister describes is cleaved by unfamiliar alliances following changes ushered in by a war with Iran and the end of more than 30 years of Republican dominance over American politics. The world’s theocracies all want to possess Symmetra—apparently, it can be used as an instrument of either spiritual enlightenment or mass propaganda—and they threaten to start a world war if the United States doesn’t share it. Baumeister’s fertile imagination conjures a whole new world, riven by real, contemporary global fissures, occupying a kind of parallel political history that branches off from the George W. Bush administration. He’s particularly deft at plumbing the virtues and vices of an explicitly Christian nation. Tuck is a personification of the tension involved, as he’s torn between his patriotic ardor and religious devotion. However, the story hinges on the plausibility of Symmetra—an innovation that never fully makes sense on either technological or theological levels. Baumeister also has a flair for comic dialogue, but sometimes the action flirts with cartoonish melodrama; for example, Ravelton’s enigmatic nom de guerre is “The Presence.”
An impressively creative blend of political intrigue and sci-fi drama partially undermined by unconvincing premises.Pub Date: March 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9984339-4-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: Stalking Horse Press
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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