An energetic opener to a comic-book–ish SF series marked by breathless action and cliffhangers.
In this debut SF novel, a farm boy in a time-frozen 1950s America where Earth is declared to be flat realizes the truth of this strange sham world and his key role in it.
Golembiewski’s series opener flirts with Philip K. Dick–style paranoia but primarily harks back to golden age pulp adventure/escapism. In a 1956-inspired contrived existence, James is a husky high school senior in the agrarian town of Eggerton. His young adult life revolves around performing harvest chores; playing baseball; going to see SF movies with his sweetheart, Carol; and anticipating college. James doesn’t initially question the school-taught dogma that Earth is flat or that a taboo, 400-foot wall west of his family’s farm marks its boundary. Approaching the wall or indulging in any anti-social behavior results in unconsciousness (aka being “switched off”). But when an odd meteor shower tears open a field, divulging a gleaming metal subsurface beneath the sod, even James has to admit something is peculiar. Locating an access doorway and settling into an awaiting automated spaceship, James is immediately zoomed to “New Atlantis,” a fabulous city-state in the hollowed-out moon. There, an enticing, gorgeous action girl named Ariel immediately plunges him into shootouts with robots and hairbreadth escapes. It seems the year really is 4040 and the dying Earth was sectioned into a multifaceted construct where the surviving populace has been genetically engineered and implanted to be docile drones. They provide food and material for the moon-dwelling “TK,” humanity’s callous, technocratic masters. James, alias “J.,” is an elite descendant of the TK. He was sent incognito to the Smallville-type community in a labyrinthine scheme to liberate and save what’s left of humankind before the TK heartlessly abandon and doom the home world. There are seemingly countless chases down corridors, innumerable trashed enemy robots, plenty of weapons fire, and lots of supporting characters introduced with such rapidity that they scarcely register (except on a scorecard) when some turn out to be devious traitors. In short, it's breezy fun writ large, with impressive scale to its imaginings but pure bubble gum in its core rather than molten iron/nickel. Readers of a certain age may remember when bubble gum traditionally came in a flat package.
An energetic opener to a comic-book–ish SF series marked by breathless action and cliffhangers. (acknowledgments, author bio)Pub Date: May 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73488-750-1
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Baba Jaga Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.
Strange and fascinating alien-contact yarn, the first of a trilogy from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, young physicist Ye Wenjie helplessly watches as fanatical Red Guards beat her father to death. She ends up in a remote re-education (i.e. forced labor) camp not far from an imposing, top secret military installation called Red Coast Base. Eventually, Ye comes to work at Red Coast as a lowly technician, but what really goes on there? Weapons research, certainly, but is it also listening for signals from space—maybe even signaling in return? Another thread picks up the story 40 years later, when nanomaterials researcher Wang Miao and thuggish but perceptive policeman Shi Qiang, summoned by a top-secret international (!) military commission, learn of a war so secret and mysterious that the military officers will give no details. Of more immediate concern is a series of inexplicable deaths, all prominent scientists, including the suicide of Yang Dong, the physicist daughter of Ye Wenjie; the scientists were involved with the shadowy group Frontiers of Science. Wang agrees to join the group and investigate and soon must confront events that seem to defy the laws of physics. He also logs on to a highly sophisticated virtual reality game called “Three Body,” set on a planet whose unpredictable and often deadly environment alternates between Stable times and Chaotic times. And he meets Ye Wenjie, rehabilitated and now a retired professor. Ye begins to tell Wang what happened more than 40 years ago. Jaw-dropping revelations build to a stunning conclusion. In concept and development, it resembles top-notch Arthur C. Clarke or Larry Niven but with a perspective—plots, mysteries, conspiracies, murders, revelations and all—embedded in a culture and politic dramatically unfamiliar to most readers in the West, conveniently illuminated with footnotes courtesy of translator Liu.
Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7706-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An exciting, thought-provoking mind-bender.
In Crouch’s sci-fi–driven thriller, a machine designed to help people relive their memories creates apocalyptic consequences.
In 2018, NYPD Detective Barry Sutton unsuccessfully tries to talk Ann Voss Peters off the edge of the Poe Building. She claims to have False Memory Syndrome, a bewildering condition that seems to be spreading. People like Ann have detailed false memories of other lives lived, including marriages and children, but in “shades of gray, like film noir stills.” For some, like Ann, an overwhelming sense of loss leads to suicide. Barry knows loss: Eleven years ago, his 15-year-old daughter, Meghan, was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Details from Ann’s story lead him to dig deeper, and his investigation leads him to a mysterious place called Hotel Memory, where he makes a life-altering discovery. In 2007, a ridiculously wealthy philanthropist and inventor named Marcus Slade offers neuroscientist Helena Smith the chance of a lifetime and an unlimited budget to build a machine that allows people to relive their memories. He says he wants to “change the world.” Helena hopes that her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, will benefit from her passion project. The opportunity for unfettered research is too tempting to turn down. However, when Slade takes the research in a controversial direction, Helena may have to destroy her dream to save the world. Returning to a few of the themes he explored in Dark Matter (2016), Crouch delivers a bullet-fast narrative and raises the stakes to a fever pitch. A poignant love story is woven in with much food for thought on grief and the nature of memories and how they shape us, rounding out this twisty and terrifying thrill ride.
An exciting, thought-provoking mind-bender.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-5978-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
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