Well-sketched characters carry a slow-paced but effective start to a potential series.
In this future-set Christian thriller, experts must decide if alarming global events are signs of an approaching apocalypse.
One day in 2038, barrages of fiery hailstones pummel countries around the world. This freak incident is over quickly, but its impact lasts much longer as the hailstones severely burned anyone and anything they hit. The president of the United States puts together a committee of scientists to try to provide an explanation for the damaging storms. Other terrifying global events follow, including ocean vortexes that take down ships; apparently contaminated water that causes hallucinations and violent episodes; and other natural disasters, including earthquakes. Mike Lathan, who’s studying pastoral ministry in Dallas, and a promising Seattle science student named Rina Adelstein join their respective mentors at experts’ meetings, where some are convinced that there’s a scientific explanation for all that’s happening. Spiritual advisors, however, note similarities between the ongoing events and familiar biblical stories. Mike and others believe that the phenomena are God’s punishment for an amoral world and part of a prophecy foretelling the End of Days. Scott deftly packs a world-spanning tale into a relatively compact novel. Along the way, he zeroes in on the absorbing romance between Mike and Rina; both characters are well-developed, as when Rina faces a personal tragedy back in her hometown of Tel Aviv. Secondary characters receive much less attention, but several brief scenes reveal the devastating events’ worldwide consequences, showcasing specific effects on such places as North Africa, Japan, and Italy: “As Francesco Vincenzo was locking up his private law office, he heard the noise and looked upward toward the gulf to see what appeared to be a black cloud, a very large one, moving rapidly toward the downtown area.” The author weaves an overt but never overwhelming Christian theme into the storyline, which proceeds as a deliberate pace as several rounds of discussions churn out proposals while passing years pile on catastrophes. The book covers just over a decade, and its ending hints at a sequel.
Well-sketched characters carry a slow-paced but effective start to a potential series.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9798985687002
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blesscott Company, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 8, 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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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