A blistering and relevant near-future military-SF yarn.
In 2028, war in Ukraine has mutated into a media spectacle for online audiences in Marcelionis’ speculative novel.
Setting his tale against an embattled Ukraine backdrop, the author refuses to spell the words “russian” or “putin” with capital letters, explaining that it’s “a universal way of expressing passive anger and disdain toward the aggressor and its leader. This tiny token of defiance is used in our daily lives, even in semi-official communications.” The narrative unfolds in 2028, when the Ukraine war is at a stalemate yet grinds on thanks to livestreaming multimedia and avid online followers; the fighting has been monetized for internet consumption, and individual combatants and their live feeds are viewed worldwide in real time. In the Ukraine “gray zone,” 49-year-old globetrotting Martynas, redubbed “Master,” is a lone soldier, a Lithuanian who served in the French Foreign Legion and went to the Ukraine to fight against the Russian invaders he has despised since his soviet-vassal youth. Master has an advantage over other teams: A powerful, rather childish tech-billionaire named Eaton Tusk is his patron. With the help of beautiful, sympathetic doctor Atari Hunter, Eaton implants Master with advanced brainwave-control chips for remote surveillance-combat drones, human Wi-fi access, and a heavily tricked-out bionic hand. Back skirmishing among abandoned factory ruins, where a number of fellow streamers have gone MIA, Master plays cat and mouse games with pursuers, including brutal archnemesis Davai Lama. The lean, caustic, first-person narrative is enhanced by moody illustrations (credited to Midjourney) and supported by extensive footnotes to the translated-from-Lithuanian prose—some are a tad unnecessary (we probably all know Hello Kitty), but most convey the slang and worldview of those resisting the Russian jackboot (Ukrainians refer to Russian troops as “orcs”). Sitting at the intersection of cyberpunk and techno-thriller/combat SF, this is an auspicious debut, whether taken as brisk escapism or a warning about the modern era of globalist imperialist dictators.
A blistering and relevant near-future military-SF yarn.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9786090806715
Page Count: 230
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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
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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