Must have been as much fun to write as it is to read.
The books of Golden Age great A.E. van Vogt (1912-2000) inspired Wright (Fugitives of Chaos, 2006, etc.) to pen this authorized sequel to The World of Null-A and The Players of Null-A.
The background will be familiar to all van Vogt fans. Gilbert Gosseyn is serially immortal—if killed, he wakes, memories intact, in a duplicate body. Not only does Gosseyn not know his origins, but he’s being manipulated by an unseen cosmic “Chessplayer” for purposes unknown. And he has two brains: the second can control energy and teleport him vast distances. While attempting to find out who he is and why he’s being manipulated, Gosseyn defends Earth and Venus against an interstellar plot, then halts the invasion plans of precognitive, clairvoyant dictator Enro the Red’s galactic empire. Among Wright’s contributions: Gosseyn discovers that he has a third brain; that there's an insane version of himself cooperating with dictator Enro; that the identity of the Chessplayer is in question; and that the woman implanted in his memories, perhaps Enro’s sister, may also be immortal. Van Vogt would have reveled in such dialogue as: “Does he know that an extra-dimensional superbeing called the Ydd is using him to destroy the continuum?” The enterprise culminates in such preposterously magnificent intricacy and density that even the elucidations of the explications require explanations.
Must have been as much fun to write as it is to read.Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1629-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2008
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 new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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