The book's first half rehashes, from another point of view, several of Niven's Known Space stories from way back, and the...
Another collaborative prequel (Fleet of Worlds, 2007) to Niven's enduringly popular Ringworld yarns.
Amalgamated Regional Militia agent Sigmund Ausfaller, a genius and certified paranoid, labors in the shadowy world of intelligence, keeping Earth and its colonies safe against alien threats. Surprisingly, it’s the cowardly, herd-minded Puppeteers that currently represent the greatest danger, since they're obsessed with protecting their species against every conceivable threat, both real and imaginary. General Products, the Puppeteers' commercial arm, sells spaceship hulls that are guaranteed indestructible and proof against all known radiation. So when a scientific vessel turns up with its hull intact but the contents (including crew) mangled almost beyond recognition, Sigmund must find out what happened (it turns out the ship strayed too near a neutron star and was shredded by intense gravity). Meanwhile, the Puppeteers are selling advanced technology to selected individuals, subverting others, spying on everybody—until they discover that the galactic core is exploding. And although they won't be affected for thousands of years, they choose to take immediate action, and all Puppeteers vanish—save for a select few hardy scouts like Nessus, who continue to pull strings to their own mysterious ends. All Sigmund has to do is figure out what and why.
The book's first half rehashes, from another point of view, several of Niven's Known Space stories from way back, and the rest isn't much better: slow-turning wheels within wheels within wheels.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1826-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
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 new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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