A grim but entertaining dystopian tale.
A biker gang rides across a desolate, precarious future world to get their hands on ancient gold in Wow’s SF debut.
Beamo Roamer is a “scavenge man” in Zarkaria, the former United States. Over a millennium ago, the apocalyptic “Doomtime,” which included a global plague, ravaged what is now referred to as “Merica” when speaking of the past. When biker gang member Beamo stumbles across a map to the old Merican base Area 51, where Fort Knox’s gold is allegedly stashed, he destroys it before rival bikers can get it. Gang leader Tee Sal enlists Beamo, his old friend, to guide his biker gang west; per the map, the scavenge man knows how to bypass Area 51’s tech-laden booby traps. The journey teems with dangers, including the notorious Mutant Angels, “sadistic freaks” who wear the skins of their victims. Other menaces are even more unpredictable, from “tech-goblins” to “geemo” (genetically modified) creatures. Beamo, Tee, and Little Bit, Tee’s half-sister (and Beamo’s romantic interest), undertake a treasure hunt that may very well get the gang killed. Wow’s dense backstory provides a rock-solid foundation for the story. Likewise, the cast already has history (Beamo and Tee did their mandatory militia service together). In fact, the story too often dwells on the past, as the bikers discuss topics they barely know anything about, such as bygone Merican days (“Back then, privileged kids went to schools called collegesuntil they turned twenty-two, a lot of times even went until they were a lot older”) and ancient religions. The author smartly keeps the characters moving westward; the gang runs across all sorts of trouble that they handle as efficiently as possible before Tee belts out his refrain, “We ride!” They face monsters of assorted sizes, supernatural beings, and evil humans, who tend to be the most deplorable of these foes. Beamo, who narrates, dubs this his memoir, but as it’s only a small part of his life; sequels/prequels are a definite possibility.
A grim but entertaining dystopian tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 233
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2023
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
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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