Engaging SF lite with some mild political satire involving the West Wing.
A civic-minded female robot, purchased as a wife in the 25th century, develops an ambition to enter Washington, D.C., politics and tackle such issues as overpopulation and economics education.
Taylor’s debut SF novel opens in 2484 in America, where marrying advanced robots from “General Google Motors” is a viable lifestyle option. Thus, affluent Thomas Jenkins, whose Virginia family has long been in Congress, buys Esmeralda, a lifelike robo-wife with Asian beauty, an astronomical IQ, and a gentle, public-spirited disposition. Though her Bible-reading mother-in-law, Geraldine, is dismayed—more so when Esmeralda and Thomas adopt a flesh-and-blood daughter—even she eventually warms to the robot. Esmeralda is interested in her new family’s government ties and alarmed by ills facing human society: environmental despoiling, overpopulation, and poor economics schooling. She follows the lead of a sister-in-law into running for office under the Green Party banner. The polite and brilliant robot rises through the ranks to become a Green Party vice presidential candidate. When the Green Party’s winner dies in a fluke attack by a leftover World War XII drone, Esmeralda must overcome the skeptics to show she can handle the White House. Taylor’s easy-to-read prose may remind many readers of mainstream authors treading in unfamiliar SF territory (Danielle Steele’s The Klone and I comes to mind). The tale features a Gene Roddenberry–level, far-future setting that does not feel much different from today. Mars colonies get brief citations, as do flying cars and a human population of 500 billion. But pop-cultural references invoke the point of view of the baby boomer era (including a casual, neutral reference to Donald Trump). The author’s agenda is less futuristic than scattered political satire. Esmeralda’s Democrat debate foe is an idiot eager to nuke Earth’s last remaining wildlife preserves to build (slightly radioactive) low-income housing; the Republican is a moron pushing an all-out war on Venus, a suspected UFO base. In this enjoyable story, ultralogical but humane machine niceness prevails over two-party idiocy and scheming. Meanwhile, the SF genre’s frequent concerns over the pros and cons of artificial intelligence (Isaac Asimov’s classic “Three Laws of Robotics,” for example) are topics conspicuous by their absence. In an afterword, Taylor describes his frustrating experiences working in the Small Business Administration (and a background in Buddhism and population-growth concerns) as major inspirations.
Engaging SF lite with some mild political satire involving the West Wing. (author bio)Pub Date: July 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73464-624-5
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Reflection Bay Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
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
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
