A brainy near-future SF novel of exploited neurons and expanding consciousness.
In this speculative novel set in a postwar future, a retired detective/government operative comes out of retirement to solve the murders of several people who, like him, possess remarkable mental powers.
Giesler, the author of The Nothing Within (2019), sets this tale of futuristic intrigue at the end of the 21st century and the beginning of the 22nd. The United States no longer exists after a violent second civil war that resulted in a “mosaic” of independent regions, now uneasily at peace. Harmony “Bibi” Cain lives in a Wisconsin retirement community in a minination called the Northstar States of America. His mild, retro lifestyle of bicycling and reading printed books (including Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower) obscures the fact that he once had a tumultuous career as a detective and, before that, was involved in government mind-based weapons projects. Bibi’s brain structure granted him a sort of psychic insight and empathy with other living things; this, in turn, led to him being part of a project to exploit the human pons adexterum—a mysterious, three-gram part of the brain that, it turns out, can command advanced drones called “motes.” Thanks to Bibi’s particular skills, the Northstar held its own in battle during the Mosaic War. But now, in 2099, he wants to withdraw from the noises in his head; he takes an illegal narcotic called kali to find solace. Meanwhile, the Northstar government is using the project’s technology to join billions of people around the world in online “lynks.” A deadly attack by motes and other drones targets those who happen to share Bibi’s rare powers; the flying automatons can remove neural matter with fiendish efficiency. Is Bibi next on the hit list? As tensions heighten across borders, Bibi reunites with old colleagues, rivals, and lovers to look into what’s going on.
The novel has elements of a trendy cyberpunk action yarn: man-machine interfaces, femmes fatales, techno-assassins, betrayals, rogue AIs, and so on. However, Giesler’s aims appear to be more ambitious than providing a simple genre exercise. He devotes many pages to the thoughtful hero’s introspection and ruminations, and action takes a back seat to descriptions of the ethical, mental, and psychological effects of hyperdeveloped empathy: “Whoever I’m around, however they’re feeling, I’m always experiencing them. I have no choice but to deal with them all the time.” Moreover, Giesler relates the narrative in an intricate, semifragmented fashion, moving back and forth chronologically. Some parts consist of transcribed interviews of a documentarian trying to uncover the truth about an apparently deceased Bibi; others are narrated by Bibi himself, who appears to be having an intimate conversation with an unspecified lynked individual; and still others are excerpts from in-universe published texts. The open ending may frustrate expectations of readers who might desire more conclusive, action-oriented material, à la The Matrix, and less philosophical pondering about the pons and God. But many SF fans will appreciate an older-than-usual main character with romantic partners who are roughly the same age.
A brainy near-future SF novel of exploited neurons and expanding consciousness.Pub Date: May 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781733567671
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Humble Quill LLC
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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