An engaging, if overstuffed, addition to the zombie-apocalypse genre.
A brave team battles zombielike creatures in this debut post-apocalyptic dystopian tale.
It’s been 50 years since meteorites landed on Earth and released alien parasites that killed most of the population. The organisms take the form of a black oily substance that inhabits human bodies and changes them, making the bodies stronger, faster and able to inject the substance into new victims. Some call these new creatures Zombies, Ghouls or Husks, “but no term seemed as fitting as Puppets.” Indeed, when humans manage to kill them, they call it “cutting their strings.” Bands of human survivors live in guarded forts and send out trained, fit Scavengers into The Wild. On a mission to find rare pharmaceutical supplies, teenage sisters Calypso and Freya and their companions discover that Puppets are mutating; the new versions are stronger, faster, heal more quickly and have more acute senses. Things look bleak for humanity, but soon, the Scavengers recruit Sara, a doctor from a nearby fort, who thinks that a cure for the parasites might be possible. Meanwhile, Freya explores her attraction to fellow Scavenger Selene, and Calypso fights her post-traumatic stress disorder, as the novel sets the stage for a decisive showdown in a planned sequel, Year 51. In his debut, Bluske works hard to make his scenario (mostly) plausible, internally consistent and spooky. As in the 2002 movie 28 Days Later, the creatures aren’t the shuffling zombies of old, but fast and strong adversaries. The novel closely describes its many fight scenes, which will particularly appeal to readers who enjoy details of weaponry, ballistics and battle tactics. However, although these scenes are well-realized, they eventually start to pile up without advancing the plot; eventually, readers may be disappointed to learn that they’ll have to wait for many answers. Other scenes, however, such as a discovery of mass suicide, will make readers wonder at how 50 years of mortal danger has toughened, and sometimes calloused, humankind.
An engaging, if overstuffed, addition to the zombie-apocalypse genre.Pub Date: July 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463777173
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2013
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
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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BOOK TO SCREEN
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