An intriguing, if somewhat vague, speculative tale.
A mysterious story about a surreal city from Russian science-fiction masters the Strugatsky brothers, translated into English for the first time.
Andrei is a Soviet astronomer from the 1950s. He now works as a trash collector, but he no longer lives in the USSR—or in the 1950s. Instead, he lives in an unknown time in the City, a strange place where the sun is extinguished like a lamp each night. The City is bordered on one side by an impossibly high wall and on the other side, by an abyss. Within these confines, troops of baboons appear out of nowhere, and sinister buildings appear and disappear at will—or do they? An inscrutable group called the Mentors has populated the City with people they’ve extracted from 20th-century times and places: Fritz, for example, was a German soldier in World War II, Selma was from 1970s Sweden, and Donald was an American college professor in the ’60s. They’ve all been brought to the City to participate in the Experiment, but no one knows precisely what its goal is. In successive episodes, the book follows Andrei as he’s shifted from job to job: first, he’s a diligent trash collector, then a police investigator, a senior editor of one of the City’s newspapers, a counselor to the president, and, finally, a soldier at war, before he reaches a surprising end. Most of the book’s action, if it can be called that, consists of people sitting around together and talking (and, more often than not, drinking). However, many readers will find it psychologically gripping to puzzle over what the City is and what will become of Andrei, although others may be frustrated by the lack of resolution. In the foreword by fellow Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, he points out that Soviet science fiction “transformed into a means for at least hinting at the true state of affairs.” Unfortunately, the story only hints, without ever fully explaining, and readers unversed in Soviet politics may feel as though they are missing out on deeper meanings. That said, it doesn’t detract from what’s otherwise a thought-provoking read.
An intriguing, if somewhat vague, speculative tale.Pub Date: July 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61373-596-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.
When a freak dust storm brings a manned mission to Mars to an unexpected close, an astronaut who is left behind fights to stay alive. This is the first novel from software engineer Weir.
One minute, astronaut Mark Watney was with his crew, struggling to make it out of a deadly Martian dust storm and back to the ship, currently in orbit over Mars. The next minute, he was gone, blown away, with an antenna sticking out of his side. The crew knew he'd lost pressure in his suit, and they'd seen his biosigns go flat. In grave danger themselves, they made an agonizing but logical decision: Figuring Mark was dead, they took off and headed back to Earth. As it happens, though, due to a bizarre chain of events, Mark is very much alive. He wakes up some time later to find himself stranded on Mars with a limited supply of food and no way to communicate with Earth or his fellow astronauts. Luckily, Mark is a botanist as well as an astronaut. So, armed with a few potatoes, he becomes Mars' first ever farmer. From there, Mark must overcome a series of increasingly tricky mental, physical and technical challenges just to stay alive, until finally, he realizes there is just a glimmer of hope that he may actually be rescued. Weir displays a virtuosic ability to write about highly technical situations without leaving readers far behind. The result is a story that is as plausible as it is compelling. The author imbues Mark with a sharp sense of humor, which cuts the tension, sometimes a little too much—some readers may be laughing when they should be on the edges of their seats. As for Mark’s verbal style, the modern dialogue at times undermines the futuristic setting. In fact, people in the book seem not only to talk the way we do now, they also use the same technology (cellphones, computers with keyboards). This makes the story feel like it's set in an alternate present, where the only difference is that humans are sending manned flights to Mars. Still, the author’s ingenuity in finding new scrapes to put Mark in, not to mention the ingenuity in finding ways out of said scrapes, is impressive.
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-3902-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
For those who like their science fiction dense, monumental, and a bit overwrought.
Brown is back with Book 4 of his Red Rising series (Morning Star, 2016, etc.) and explores familiar themes of rebellion, revenge, and political instability.
This novel examines the ramifications and pitfalls of trying to build a new world out of the ashes of the old. The events here take place 10 years after the conclusion of Morning Star, which ended on a seemingly positive note. Darrow, aka Reaper, and his lover, Virginia au Augustus, aka Mustang, had vanquished the Golds, the elite ruling class, so hope was held out that a new order would arise. But in the new book it becomes clear that the concept of political order is tenuous at best, for Darrow’s first thoughts are on the forces of violence and chaos he has unleashed: “famines and genocide...piracy...terrorism, radiation sickness and disease...and the one hundred million lives lost in my [nuclear] war.” Readers familiar with the previous trilogy—and you'll have to be if you want to understand the current novel—will welcome a familiar cast of characters, including Mustang, Sevro (Darrow’s friend and fellow warrior), and Lysander (grandson of the Sovereign). Readers will also find familiarity in Brown’s idiosyncratic naming system (Cassius au Bellona, Octavia au Lune) and even in his vocabulary for cursing (“Goryhell,” “Bloodydamn,” “Slag that”). Brown introduces a number of new characters, including 18-year-old Lyria, a survivor of the initial Rising who gives a fresh perspective on the violence of the new war—and violence is indeed never far away from the world Brown creates. (He includes one particularly gruesome gladiatorial combat between Cassius and a host of enemies.) Brown imparts an epic quality to the events in part by his use of names. It’s impossible to ignore the weighty connotations of characters when they sport names like Bellerephon, Diomedes, Dido, and Apollonius.
For those who like their science fiction dense, monumental, and a bit overwrought.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-425-28591-6
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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