A powerful launch to a fresh SF series that promises a wealth of ingenious concepts.
Three individuals in a spacefaring future—where people fluidly inhabit successive bodies—participate in a desperate rescue mission near Neptune.
Linse’s Mechalum Space series begins with this auspicious SF novel, initially a triptych that comes together in the fourth act. The 28th-century setting encompasses a space-straddling era of Homo mutatis. Humankind has mastered the technique of inserting a consciousness into a seemingly endless variety of prepared bodies, whether organically grown flesh-and-blood hosts or special-purpose mechs. Virtual immortality, artificial intelligence companions, and perpetual attachment to the descendant of the internet (“the mesh”) are part of this revolution. But the real payoff is the invention of “Faison Gates.” These allow inquisitive, adventurous, or just plain desperate minds to teleport instantaneously throughout 300 remotely settled planets and environments in deep space. But it’s hardly idyllic. A religious war (traditional religion lost, apparently) raged early in this new era, and a backward-looking Earth has been largely cut off and neglected ever since. And two “essents” trying to occupy the same body will result in the death of one of them, a known method of assassination. In such a nest of polymorphic intrigue, Jazari is a somewhat naïve student of “xenolinguistics” (trained to communicate with advanced alien races even though such direct contact has not yet happened). She was forced by circumstance into joining the talented and diverse crew of crime kingpin Zosi, a choice she ultimately regrets. On another distant world, scientist Eala studies a gentle amphibious species called the taktak, whose ability to communicate telepathically represents another possible breakthrough. And, on the rim of humanity’s original, now-obscure solar system, a biologically generated body, code-named ZD777, is revived, nurtured, and educated by an AI guardian only to be informed of his predicament: He is the lone man aboard a hollowed-out asteroid, formerly a teeming space base for the Kuiper belt, now a forgotten, derelict habitat slowly failing in orbit around Neptune.
The potential to rescue ZD777 from his apparently hopeless fate is the climax of the multiheaded narrative stream, and quite a nail-biter it becomes. (Whether those nails are human or metallic alloy is up for discussion.) Wyoming-based author Linse previously published books set in the hardscrabble American West of today and yesteryear but adapts to the final frontier of far-future space with no rocky trails or cowboy atavisms whatsoever. Some of the speculations here (especially concerning the nature of intelligence, biologically native or artificial) could have taught Isaac Asimov a thing or two. That said, tenderfeet to this universe will have to struggle initially with a density of imaginative futurespeak jargon and para-human traits (including the near-universal use of the pronoun sheto designate everyone; complete genderfluidity evidently does that to a society). Linse only provides the expected information downloads and history lesson expositions every 100 pages or so. But readers who can think on their feet and adapt to the altered paradigm of what it means to be human—or sentient—are in for an exciting and provocative expedition to a new realm of ideas that’s particularly strong in the characterization department. The novel ends with every indication that more riches remain to be tapped from Mechalum Space.
A powerful launch to a fresh SF series that promises a wealth of ingenious concepts. (author bio)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-953694-00-3
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Salix
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
PROFILES
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
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
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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