This is a solid, if not especially imaginative or polished, science fiction debut.
Ellis, a Hugo-nominated media critic and YouTube star, finds alien encounters in our not-too-distant past.
It’s 2007, but not the 2007 you remember. In this timeline, a meteor has struck Los Angeles—at least that’s what the government wants people to believe. Rogue conspiracy theorist Nils Ortega has convinced his followers that the so-called “Ampersand Event” was actually the arrival of an alien spacecraft. College dropout Cora Sabino isn’t convinced. She learned long ago not to trust anything her estranged father has to say. But then her mother and siblings disappear the same night she’s attacked by something that clearly isn’t human….“First contact” stories are almost as old as science fiction. These narratives are varied in their details—both H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and the 1970s sitcom Mork & Mindy qualify—but they all revolve around the initial encounter between humans and an alien intelligence. At its best, science fiction isn’t really about extraterrestrials and advanced technology, though; instead, it deploys these devices to talk about us in the here and now. Like countless authors before her, Ellis uses first contact to interrogate our tendencies toward xenophobia and prejudice and challenge our conceptions of what humanity means. She also explores trauma and its aftereffects. Nils’ crusade for government transparency and questions about privacy feel contemporary without adding much depth. The same goes for references to financial crisis. The heart of the novel is the relationship between Cora and the part-biological, part-synthetic entity she calls Ampersand. What begins with a physical attack and an abduction turns into a partnership and, ultimately, a deep friendship. As Cora helps Ampersand navigate life on Earth, she learns more about his world and his past. Ellis doesn’t break new ground here, and her prose is uneven. The injections of quirky humor feel particularly strained. But this hits all the necessary notes for a first contact narrative, and this trope might be fresh for at least a portion of Ellis’ fan base.
This is a solid, if not especially imaginative or polished, science fiction debut.Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-25673-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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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