An engaging SF page-turner that delivers outsized characters, fiendish villains, and vicious paybacks.
In this third installment of a series, a new teleportation technology, intended to extinguish global warming and fossil-fuel fires, is corrupted to offer eternal life.
Heaton continues his SF/techno-thriller series that started with LEAP (2022), which posited an alternative 2003 in which the world faced a paradigm shift. The change was sparked by eco-entrepreneurs Uma Jakobsdóttir, a scientist’s daughter obsessed with lowering carbon emissions, and Britain’s Ethan Rae, a tainted billionaire whose Green Ray fund supported “decarbonization.” Their killer app: LEAP, free technology that passes for teleportation. It breaks down matter at one gateway and reconstitutes it at another. If LEAP prevails, all fossil fuel-dependent transportation and shipping becomes obsolete—and with it, greedy business lords who prosper from petrochemicals. But LEAP has another side; quantum-computing can digitally record the atomic records of users and re-create such individuals indefinitely, thus conferring clone-based immortality and endless human backups. John Forsyth, a vile, CIA-connected capitalist, was previously defeated by Ethan and Uma after the villain and his chief scientist stole LEAP’s secrets and sold them to some Saudis. Now, in 2010, as LEAP gains favor with the White House over industry opposition, Forsyth counters with a Riyadh-backed venture, called “Eternity,” providing perpetual life to rich elites (“Not even the top 0.1%. But the lucky 0.001%. The fortunate few. His few”). This violates the “LEAP Laws” against mortal resurrection codified by Uma, who is forced by Forsyth’s media manipulation to admit that she and Ethan (now lovers) used LEAP data to cheat death in previous adventures. But worse than the public-relations damage is a LEAP-revived rogue Navy SEAL with a vendetta against Ethan, and a flesh-eating virus that gruesomely strikes thousands of LEAPers. Though much of a piece with the other books in Heaton’s saga, this solid volume is especially pulpy fiction with an emphasis on gruesome torture, deviancy, twisted revenge, and poetic justice. Between bouts of mayhem, the gripping story skillfully explores the ethical dilemmas of effectively Xeroxing human beings (or their mental processes, another LEAP effect), even touching on the abortion controversy and definitions of humanity. Unintended consequences of science innovations are an SF mainstay, and Heaton has done considerable looking before LEAPing. It’s clear he isn’t done with the energetic premise yet.
An engaging SF page-turner that delivers outsized characters, fiendish villains, and vicious paybacks.Pub Date: Feb. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780956172068
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Rookwood Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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
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