While thick at times, this tale about a sinister company eventually delivers plenty of atmosphere and action.
A debut sci-fi novel focuses on a powerful corporation and its dark quest for control.
Judging by his serious demeanor and his ability to wash Tylenol down with whiskey, Jonathan Romero might seem like any stressed businessman. The company he works for, however, is far from ordinary. With origins that date back to Colonial times and resources that include an immense collection of “occult and philosophical treasures,” the Strand Corporation of Philadelphia engages in activities that even the most morally bankrupt executive might find shocking. Working to steal ideas, patent them, and sell the rights, the company has come a long way from its founding principles. As Romero reflects, rather sourly (particularly as he is suffering from a brain tumor), “The founding fathers of The Strand Society would turn over in their graves if they were to observe the travesty built upon their ideals.” Utilizing people called “Conductors” for “hacking dreams” and a beautiful, H.R. Giger–loving assassin named Macaria to eliminate any threats, Strand has quite the method to its madness. Meanwhile, a writer named Blake William garners the attention of the company, particularly after a former Strand employee named Alex Tannersly (an ex-Conductor whom the corporation has been “hunting” ever since he left) attempts to contact him. William commands success as a writer but he fears he might be losing his mind. What does someone like Alex want with William? Dense with explanation, there is a lot for the reader to absorb. No sooner is Romero finishing his Tylenol than Conductors and a Watcher are being discussed and Macaria’s origins explained. Once things get going, though, the plot is rife with spookiness and “dark atmospheric doom metal.” Incorporating the gothic and the William Gibson–esque, the story reveals that many complex things are possible in this world of dream hacking and murder for hire. While lacking the intricate, futuristic pizazz of Gibson’s Neuromancer, this novel features its share of adventures as well as escalating oddities. A sense of suspense is maintained, allowing readers intrigued by an unlikely hero like William to be decidedly curious as to how this caper will end.
While thick at times, this tale about a sinister company eventually delivers plenty of atmosphere and action.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dark Revelations Media
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2016
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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