Readers will look forward to seeing how this imaginative cosmos unfolds in future installments.
Nanobots from another universe invade Earth–or did they create it?–in this engrossing kickoff to a sci-fi trilogy.
It’s 2147, humanity is recovering from nuclear war and devastating plagues, and the scientists at Australia’s University of Northern Territory confront new threats to the planet. Archaeobiologist Andrew Quatermas encounters one in the form of a stromatolite, a rock formation constructed billions of years ago by fossilized microorganisms. But these crystals are hardly moribund–when soaked in carbon or boron compounds, they start furiously synthesizing the chemical machinery of life. Studying them with his mass spectrometer and gamma-ray microscope, physicist Miklav Petrovsky detects unnatural elements and tiny structures that, he instantly surmises, add up to “a rocket between dimensions or universes” that “came from somewhere beyond the Planck limit.” A few days and a biocontainment breach later, the campus suddenly finds itself on the front lines of a conflict between two transgalactic civilizations–one is on a crusade to perfect the universe and abolish entropy, while the other is populated by artificial-intelligence systems that smoke too much and worry about keeping their jobs. This is hardcore science fiction, full of endless laboratory procedural and techie dialogue–“So, if electromagnetism were super-symmetric, the fermionic photinos would exactly cancel the photonic contribution and there would be no Casimir lasing”–that might mean something to a theoretical physicist but it’s difficult for the lay reader. It’s also got grand musings on the origin and fate of the universe and the meaning of existence, most memorably from the Church of the Unanswered Question, whose Sartrean prayer services include lines like “We believe in the profound irony of life” and “God is distant, remote and utterly alien.” Kelly sometimes overdoes it, but her writing is well-paced with gripping action scenes and touches of humor, and she gets enough of the science and Big Ideas across, despite the tech speak, to pique the reader’s interest.
Readers will look forward to seeing how this imaginative cosmos unfolds in future installments.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2008
ISBN: 978-1440440977
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.
Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.
The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-88743-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A huge, churning, relentlessly entertaining melodrama buoyed by confidence that human values will prevail.
A rare, rattling space opera—first of a trilogy, or series, from Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck).
Humanity colonized the solar system out as far as Neptune but then exploration stagnated. Straight-arrow Jim Holden is XO of an ice-hauler swinging between the rings of Saturn and the mining stations of the Belt, the scattered ring of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. His ship's captain, responding to a distress beacon, orders Holden and a shuttle crew to investigate what proves to be a derelict. Holden realizes it's some sort of trap, but an immensely powerful, stealthed warship destroys the ice-hauler, leaving Holden and the shuttle crew the sole survivors. This unthinkable act swiftly brings Earth, with its huge swarms of ships, Mars with its less numerous but modern and powerful navy, and the essentially defenseless Belt to the brink of war. Meanwhile, on the asteroid Ceres, cynical, hard-drinking detective Miller—we don't find out he has other names until the last few pages—receives orders to track down and "rescue"—i.e. kidnap—a girl, Julie Mao, who rebelled against her rich Earth family and built an independent life for herself in the Belt. Julie is nowhere to be found but, as the fighting escalates, Miller discovers that Julie's father knew beforehand that hostilities would occur. Now obsessed, Miller continues to investigate even when he loses his job—and the trail leads towards Holden, the derelict, and what might prove to be a horrifying biological experiment. No great depth of character here, but the adherence to known physical laws—no spaceships zooming around like airplanes—makes the action all the more visceral. And where Corey really excels is in conveying the horror and stupidity of interplanetary war, the sheer vast emptiness of space and the amorality of huge corporations.
A huge, churning, relentlessly entertaining melodrama buoyed by confidence that human values will prevail.Pub Date: June 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-12908-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
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