An often baffling tale, but its protagonist’s wry commentary is undeniably entertaining.
In Dash’s (Sunburn, 2015, etc.) sci-fi outing, a man finds himself in a bizarre city filled with emotionless, robotic drones and people with fluctuating memories.
Londoner Newman Riplan, who troubleshoots computers, is in Amsterdam for work. It’s a relatively simple gig, but he takes his time so that he can stay overnight and party with Hughie and Battles, old friends whom he hasn’t seen in a couple of years. After the trio drinks, smokes, and snorts to excess, Hughie convinces Riplan that he’s due for a vacation and even buys him a plane ticket to a surprise destination. A fairly uneventful flight, however, takes an eerie turn when a confused Riplan suddenly has the feeling that he’s the only living soul on the plane—everyone else seems to have turned into mannequins. After the plane lands, he gets no clarification as to his whereabouts; when he asks the people around him, they respond: “Where do you think you are?” He enters a nameless city populated by drones—humanlike automatons that initially don’t seem to serve a purpose. Neither are the humans very accommodating, and they’re unfamiliar with even basic amenities, such as glass or electricity. Apparently someone called “the Alchemist,” of whom little is known, provides the people with what they need. Riplan believes that if he can just meet this man, he can find a way out of the city and back home. Dash’s surreal tale has its share of unsettling moments; two of the most disturbing entail Riplan learning what type of currency the city dwellers use and the origin of their preferred drink. There’s also an abundance of intriguing peculiarities, from beasts that run amok when the moon turns crimson to men who do a nightly task when everyone’s asleep. Readers shouldn’t expect many answers, though, as the city’s inhabitants have spotty recollections of their pasts. As a result, the novel is a dizzying affair, but Dash grounds the story with Riplan’s genuine connection to a woman he meets, named Cheryl. The author also provides moments of humor; Riplan gets a job in the city as a teller of tales, which he pulls from books and movies and claims as his own. The ending, though predictable, doesn’t disappoint, as it offers resolution while also leaving a lot to interpretation.
An often baffling tale, but its protagonist’s wry commentary is undeniably entertaining.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5396-2866-8
Page Count: 310
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
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
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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