A tense read with an impressive reveal and an unpredictable conclusion.
This thought-provoking SF novel by author Nedeau painstakingly details the fragility of identity.
Darien Mamon is spoiled rich kid who’s had to find his own way after his parents’ deaths in an accident. After he was expelled from college in Miami for cheating, Darien scraped by with a series of badly paying coding jobs; then he was diagnosed with cancer, and its treatment left him in a deep, deep hole financially. That’s why the job offer from MemorSingular was a godsend. He’s now employed as a grunt at the MemorSingular memory-storage facility in Tucson, Arizona, working in a converted missile silo, and he works with the company’s renowned Dr. Hollister as the subject of cutting-edge memory experiments. But the experiments have a side effect: Darien begins having memories that are unfamiliar but also feel very real, and when he finds out the reason for the strange recollections, it comes as a shock—although it also explains why Hollister has been trying to eliminate Darien’s fear of heights. To escape his fate at Hollister’s hands, Darien enlists the help of Nancy, his ex-girlfriend's best friend who hates him, and her fellow rebels at South Miami Technical College. Over the course of this thriller, Nedeau slickly crafts a sinister twist on the reason why people’s memories blur as they age. The author plants the seed for the huge plot twist early on, then slyly veers away from it, making the reader think that Darien is simply suffering from some kind of mental breakdown. Nedeau also accomplishes the surprising feat of making the unpleasant protagonist likable by novel’s end; Darien is shown to mature as he learns that he’s not the only victim of the conspiracy at the heart of the story. The supporting cast members aren’t as nuanced as the main character, but they do play their roles well in the suspenseful narrative.
A tense read with an impressive reveal and an unpredictable conclusion.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-953305-01-5
Page Count: 309
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A ridiculous concept imbued with gravity, charm, humor, plausible cynicism, and pathos—and perhaps the merest touch of spite.
A Wallace & Gromit dream is more of a nightmare in this darkly farcical science fantasy in which the moon inexplicably becomes…well, not green, but decidedly dairy.
When the moon and every lunar sample on Earth transform into a cheese-like substance, it seems amusing at first, but the appearance of this newly organic, extremely unstable satellite has far-reaching, apocalyptic consequences. A variety of U.S. citizens—disappointed astronauts from newly cancelled lunar missions, scientists whose understanding of the universe has been entirely upended, writers frantically adapting their pitches, retirees at a rural diner finding solace in their friendship, a small church community looking for divine answers, bickering cheese-shop owners whose product gets both welcome and unwelcome attention, the ultra-wealthy owner of an aerospace company with a spectacularly self-involved agenda, bank executives seeking a financial angle, and government officials desperately scheduling press conferences—respond in ways grand and petty, generous and self-serving. Those responses can only escalate when a cheesy lunar fragment threatens to destroy all life on our planet. Scalzi’s premise is absurd, but it’s merely the pretext to take a multifaceted, satiric look at how Americans deal with large-scale crisis, something we’re abundantly and recently familiar with, and will no doubt experience again in the not-so-distant future. He writes of denial, conspiracy theories, anger directed at the wrong people, unscrupulous political machinations, and multiple attempts at profiting from the end of the world, for as long as it lasts. There are moments of unexpected kindness and generosity, too. Of course, Scalzi takes aim at his favorite corporate, social, and government targets, as well as at the cheap sentiment that crisis always seems to inspire (as exemplified by a catastrophic Saturday Night Live episode).
A ridiculous concept imbued with gravity, charm, humor, plausible cynicism, and pathos—and perhaps the merest touch of spite.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780765389091
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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