An often intense and prescient neogothic techno-horror tale, despite inconsistent execution.
In Hallman’s novel, a struggling writer accepts a lucrative job ghostwriting for a tech entrepreneur—and soon uncovers horrific secrets.
The author presents a tale set among decaying factories, poisoned forests, and abandoned laboratories that becomes a cautionary tale about late-stage capitalism, ecological trauma, and artificial intelligence. Glenn Hurst is a 50-something writer who very much needs an infusion of cash, and when Brad Thorsen, the wealthy CEO of Bitcoin-oriented tech company Silmaril Mining, asks him to write his “origin story,” it seems to be the answer to Glenn’s problems; soon, he’s suddenly $20,000 richer, with $80,000 more to come: “Grab that lifeline with both hands,” he thinks. “And never let go.” Before long, though, his research unearths a conspiracy theory involving a coverup of industrial waste and a parasitic infection from mutated skin-burrowing insects. Although the book never fully embraces tropes of folk horror, it still succeeds as a taut, well-paced tale of terror. At times, though, the novel buckles under the weight of its own ideas, particularly when its multimillionaire antagonist lapses into exposition-heavy monologues. The supporting cast is less engaging, particularly the female characters, who feel significantly underdeveloped. Several other characters fall into recognizable archetypes: comic relief, the tough guy, the ambiguous outsider. The story introduces intriguing elements, such as a potentially sentient AI consciousness, but never fully resolves them, and the second act occasionally drags down the otherwise tight story with repeated facility tours and long speeches. That said, the engaging dynamic between the protagonist and antagonist gives the story much of its momentum, and the plot effectively explores fears of AI replacing work, crypto replacing labor, and techno-utopianism replacing what’s come before. Indeed, Glenn’s career displacement becomes one of the novel’s most powerful recurring motifs.
An often intense and prescient neogothic techno-horror tale, despite inconsistent execution.Pub Date: May 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781969599040
Page Count: 394
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2026
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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