A post-human entity proves to be the most relatable character in this engaging cyberthriller.
A dying woman discovers a way to survive and thrive in a digital afterlife in Gloster’s provocative novella.
In the 2080s, Eleanor Burton leads the multinational development team that created the OrbitNet satellite, which she describes as “a data junction box that connected the entire planet.” Tragically, at this moment of her greatest triumph, Eleanor is dying of an entrenched fungal infection. That’s why she agrees to an offer from Benjamin, an old school chum, to be the first human to undergo an enhanced brain scan that his team has developed. Before dying, Eleanor hides her brain scan aboard OrbitNet, intending to live on as a post-human entity called ELE after the death of her body. In a note, Eleanor explains that ELE is two-thirds of a god, having practical immortality and omniscience but lacking omnipotence. ELE must outsmart Benjamin and his overseer, Marwood, a Black Ops agent who is working for a politician nicknamed Viceroy; they are engaged in a plot to control humanity’s future. She recruits allies in Charlotte, “a distributed intelligence consisting of the various protocol mechanisms that run the Internetworks,” and LNX, another duplicate of Eleanor’s scan designed by Benjamin to be weak-willed. It’s evident that the author, who had a career as a computer scientist before turning to writing, is comfortable with all the technobabble in this book. That likely isn’t often the case for most readers, who may get lost in the highly technical OrbitNet backdrop. But Gloster does make readers care about ELE, who is clearly Eleanor extended, with similar emotions and concerns. (Conversely, the humans—Benjamin, Marwood, and Viceroy—are the villains of this piece.) The most enjoyable part of the narrative is ELE’s evolution into her godhood during the cat-and-mouse action as she attempts to stay a step ahead of the opposition. The novel succeeds both as a character study of a digital being and as a techno-thriller.
A post-human entity proves to be the most relatable character in this engaging cyberthriller.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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