A thought-provoking fictional examination of big ideas.
A neurosurgeon gets involved with a scientific research team’s mind-bending project in Lanza and Kress’ SF novel that blends elements of biology, physics, and multiverse theory.
Caroline “Caro” Soames-Watkins is a capable, smart young neurosurgeon whose promising career is threatened after she reports a fellow doctor for sexual harassment and an onslaught of her harasser’s supporters come after her on social media. Drowning in loans, and with a sister and a disabled niece who rely on her for financial support, Caro accepts an invitation from her great-uncle Samuel Louis Watkins, whom she’s never met. He’s a terminally ill Nobel laureate who offers her a lucrative position as surgeon at a remote facility in the Caribbean. Her suspicions that the facility isn’t an ordinary hospital are proven right when, after signing nondisclosure agreements, she’s told about the real research going on behind closed doors. Her great-uncle—together with his lifelong friend and genius physicist George Weigert, and with support from tech developer Julian Dey—is apparently in the process of creating technology that will allow people to observe different branches of the multiverse. The process involves brain-implant surgery that Caro will be doing on volunteers. It’s supposed to be life-changing, potentially Nobel Prize–winning science, but Caro isn’t entirely convinced—until her personal life and the scientific project converge. This compelling novel by Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Kress and medical doctor and scientific researcher Lanza strikes a fine balance between hard-SF ideas around quantum physics, consciousness, and biology and accounts of the lives of people who deeply engage with those ideas. Caro, as one of the viewpoint characters, effectively acts as a surrogate for lay readers: “She said aloud, 'I am made of quantum foam that has been collapsed into Caroline Soames-Watkins.' ” No, she thought, I am made of confusion.” The other viewpoint character, George, provides more in-depth scientific takes, but both speakers are equally well developed and accessible. Overall, it’s a novel full of life-affirming ideas that’s likely to make readers rethink concepts of time and space.
A thought-provoking fictional examination of big ideas.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781611883435
Page Count: 368
Publisher: The Story Plant
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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