A somewhat uneven but enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage.
In Harvey’s retelling of the creation myth, heavenly agents combat a growing rebellion unfolding on Earth.
Billions of years ago, the Nothingness begins creating a new multiverse. Ultimately adopting the name The Great Being, He makes avatars to which He grants free will. Hardhearted Lucifer uses his free will to rebel, creating his personal line of avatars, who then reproduce on their own. To contend with Lucifer’s mounting forces, The Great Being forms the Agents of Cosmic Intelligence. Agents Layla and Melchizedek’s first mission takes place on Earth: They’re born into human bodies (as twin siblings) with “newly-evolved brains.” As they gradually teach Neanderthals language, they run into a serious problem—the two periodically forget their true identities. This becomes a greater concern on their next mission, which begins 160,000 years later. They return to Earth to take over two recently expired male bodies and become part of a tribe. The mission details aren’t immediately clear, though Layla and “Melchi” encounter a leader who may very well be one of Lucifer’s rebels. As the agents once again lose themselves in their human forms, the rebels (“awakened” in human bodies) can’t be sure if these warriors secretly belong to The Great Being’s intelligence branch. The rebels have “altered” human brains, which are inclined to “[take] over” entirely, and everyone has trouble remembering who they really are. In the book’s final third, yet another Earthbound mission sees five agents mingling with a host of biblical figures, including Abram (Abraham), Nimrod, and Lot.
Much of Harvey’s first installment in this new series is conceptual. That’s perfectly understandable when The Great Being forms ideas and creatures from nothing, but once the agents take on human bodies and interact with others on Earth, the meager character descriptions are much harder to accept. (The two corpses that Layla and Melchi “revive” are simply identified as “one blonde and the other darker of hair and skin.”) In the same vein, certain narrative elements pop up with nary an explanation, such as the rebels’ Planetary Command and the Free Will Zone. There’s a “cosmic smartphone,” which is unquestionably amusing but narratively immaterial; it “[functions] almost as well as” the telepathy that both agents and rebels commonly use to communicate. Still, this story deftly explores human nature—the uplifting qualities and dour traits alike: In the first mission, the often-genial agents nearly succumb to their own egos, merely over a disagreement about who concocted a successful but relatively minor plan. While the two strive to teach the humans compassion, the Earthly tribespeople seem much more interested in battle than in seeking peaceful solutions to problems. The second mission (and the longest, narratively) delightfully zeroes in on the question of identity as Layla and Melchi, on Earth primarily to teach, are sometimes driven to adopt the same behaviors and beliefs as humans. Layla’s personal confusion is particularly intriguing, as developing feelings for Melchi (her former teacher) ostensibly conflict with her male body’s sexual attraction to his wife.
A somewhat uneven but enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage.Pub Date: March 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780918538215
Page Count: 261
Publisher: The Human Effectiveness Institute
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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