An absorbing, realistic dystopian tale with a superb cast.
Ranchers and university students fight to survive after an economic crisis turns American citizens against one another in this thriller.
Sam Delgado and other college students head to an archaeological project in Wyoming just as a cyberattack hits American banks. Businesses start refusing credit cards, generating quite a stir, yet Sam and the others are sure everything will be back to normal in a few days. But then the president declares martial law. With travel restricted, most of the students opt to stay in the relatively isolated spot, bunking at the Tappan family’s ranch. Meanwhile, countrywide unrest escalates as cities lose electrical power and a nation reputedly invades America. Sam and his fellow students face a domestic threat; Homeland Security Director Kevin Edgewater abuses his authority and, with his cronies, menaces Wyoming residents. The Tappans teach the students how to shoot, but that doesn’t prepare anyone at the ranch for Edgewater’s lethal assaults. Revenge-minded Sam ultimately pursues the director. He finds an ally in Breeze Tappan, who returns to the ranch after traveling through Colorado, currently a much harsher place than Wyoming. She and Sam have the determination—and guns—to face Edgewater and his armed men. Gear’s novel teems with well-developed characters of varying backgrounds. For example, Sam is a Mexican whose father disapproves of his anthropology major, and someone else’s harrowing past includes torture at the hands of the Islamic State group. At the same time, the story wisely zeroes in on Sam’s perspective while Breeze’s periodic journal entries provide a glimpse of the nation’s alarming troubles. The author enriches the plausible narrative with ties to real-world events, like Covid-19, as well as analogies with ancient civilizations collapsing. The work’s latter half is noticeably violent, with an unexpected turn and several deaths making the most impact. Despite a thorough ending, this engrossing book launches a series.
An absorbing, realistic dystopian tale with a superb cast. (dedication, acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: June 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64734-272-2
Page Count: 454
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: March 18, 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
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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