An oceangoing SF/techno-thriller made especially seaworthy by its depth, not just its depth charges.
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In Marsh’s future-set novel, tough, freedom-loving, and eco-minded sailors patrol Earth’s seas against greedy, corrupt empires.
SF/fantasy author Marsh envisions a late-21st-century future in which, following a second American civil war (which ended mysteriously and inconclusively), a large number of environmentalists and democracy lovers flee the greedy, corrupt United States—basically a vassal of Russia—to form the Mariners, a seagoing, island-centered nation-state. Mariners, aka “shipsies,” are considered rogues, occupying much of the Pacific with their ragtag, resourceful navy. They have cleansed their waters of plastic and maintained sustainable sea life (even saving the whales) but face incursions from mammoth fossil fuel container ships and voracious fishing fleets. Then from the treacherous USA comes a surprise envoy, Congressman Arnold Drummond, claiming to want a peaceful mission, in cooperation with a U.S. Navy warship, to investigate a mysterious, sunken complex. The site is rumored to hold advanced, perhaps apocalyptic, weapons cached before the war, and coordinates have already leaked to the criminal underworld. Navigator Kara Nkosi, adopted into Mariner society as a human-trafficked little girl and now a fierce defender of its values, distrusts the Americans but finds herself in dangerous straits as the recovery mission involves powerful entities. Marsh’s believable worldbuilding only improves this climate-changed dystopia. The well-conceived Greenpeace-with-guts heroes make compelling characters. The cli-fi aspects aren’t overdone and neither are the cyberpunk trappings of enhanced humans. Pages turn faster than a propeller when it’s time for battle stations, and action comes on brisk and fiery. Belowdecks, though, lies genuine conviction about this slightly altered tomorrow—a place where morally bankrupt corporate states rule like pirate kings and a major holiday is “Putin Day.”
An oceangoing SF/techno-thriller made especially seaworthy by its depth, not just its depth charges.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-938190-72-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Brick Cave Media
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
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Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
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SEEN & HEARD
Narnia on the Penobscot: a grand, and naturally strange, entertainment from the ever prolific King.
What’s a person to do when sheltering from Covid? In King’s case, write something to entertain himself while reflecting on what was going on in the world outside—ravaged cities, contentious politics, uncertainty. King’s yarn begins in a world that’s recognizably ours, and with a familiar trope: A young woman, out to buy fried chicken, is mashed by a runaway plumber’s van, sending her husband into an alcoholic tailspin and her son into a preadolescent funk, driven “bugfuck” by a father who “was always trying to apologize.” The son makes good by rescuing an elderly neighbor who’s fallen off a ladder, though he protests that the man’s equally elderly German shepherd, Radar, was the true hero. Whatever the case, Mr. Bowditch has an improbable trove of gold in his Bates Motel of a home, and its origin seems to lie in a shed behind the house, one that Mr. Bowditch warns the boy away from: “ ‘Don’t go in there,’ he said. ‘You may in time, but for now don’t even think of it.’ ” It’s not Pennywise who awaits in the underworld behind the shed door, but there’s plenty that’s weird and unexpected, including a woman, Dora, whose “skin was slate gray and her face was cruelly deformed,” and a whole bunch of people—well, sort of people, anyway—who’d like nothing better than to bring their special brand of evil up to our world’s surface. King’s young protagonist, Charlie Reade, is resourceful beyond his years, but it helps that the old dog gains some of its youthful vigor in the depths below. King delivers a more or less traditional fable that includes a knowing nod: “I think I know what you want,” Charlie tells the reader, "and now you have it”—namely, a happy ending but with a suitably sardonic wink.
A tale that’s at once familiar and full of odd and unexpected twists—vintage King, in other words.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66800-217-9
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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