A multitiered SF story cunningly rendered in nonchronological fashion.
McBee’s post-apocalyptic tale follows three separate timelines in this SF thriller.
In Kuridian, a bleak dystopian landscape of primitive settlements and suspicious rustics, a “gris-gris man” called Rance drifts from community to community dispensing mystical services and favors. He is not a shaman or hoodoo soothsayer but rather a long-lived holdover from the previous century, when vat-spawned people were infused with wonder-working nanotechnology—a necessity for survival and settling the harsh terrain of another planet. After an apocalyptic “Breakdown,” subsequent generations have largely forgotten these origins. Rance and scattered other “Watchers” like him try to revive the lost high-tech civilization, but it appears to be a futile struggle. In the same setting, a woman called Regaline tries to round up and train nano-gifted children who show signs of being able to control their latent nanite powers. But a conquest-minded city-state called Interland is also on the move, enslaving all such “casters” and weaponizing them as drone-soldiers for their invasions. In a third narrative thread (one with strong Philip K. Dick overtones), Kinney works for the giant HelixCom company on a nanotechnology base on an alien world, participating in terraforming the ecosystem for human life. He is sent by his shadowy superior to infiltrate a poorly run sister installation in search of possible espionage and sabotage, and he is met with hostility by new fellow employees, especially the beautiful Astrid Free. The three parts eventually tie together in a satisfying, if not entirely clear, sequence set in a milieu in which deep-space colonization requires long-range projections of “capsules containing payloads of programmable matter” and downloaded minds rather than the SF genre’s typical astronauts and colony ships. The unintended consequences are cleverly explored; nanotech becomes a sort of all-purpose magic, enabling wizardlike elemental combat and even something approximating vampirism (though this latter quality goes largely unexplored). The intricate, time-looping structure allows the author to drop numerous shocking reveals on the reader.
A multitiered SF story cunningly rendered in nonchronological fashion.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798891324664
Page Count: 452
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A hopeful conclusion to a dystopian trilogy that’s as sexy as ever.
Sexual and romantic tension abounds as the exceedingly attractive leads continue to fight for their love amid amnesia, a struggle against a robot overlord, and ongoing conflicts between rival revolutionary factions before everything culminates in a final battle.
Takeshi and Khalani have escaped the prison where they were tortured and confessed their love for one another, but Takeshi’s memory is gone. Khalani is committed to making sure that he remembers his devotion to humanity—and his feelings for her—although forces seem to be working against them. Project Helix, a secret initiative from before the Great Collapse, when people moved underground hundreds of years ago, represents the only hope to reclaim the Earth’s surface. As they search for it, Khalani, Takeshi, and their chosen family must decide which group to align with: the Desert Spring or the Sinners. Engaging with timely concepts of anxiety over AI and destructive climate change, this proves to be a satisfying tale for our times that leavens moments of harsh violence with erotic sex scenes that focus on bondage and power-play kink. Readers here for sensual scenes or lavish battles will be swept up in this final chapter of the series. Earlier entries described Khalani as Hispanic and Takeshi as Asian; this volume continues to make note of Takeshi’s “bulging muscles.”
A hopeful conclusion to a dystopian trilogy that’s as sexy as ever. (content note, author’s note) (Dystopian. 16-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781464278136
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.
A processing plant manager struggles with the grim realities of a society where cannibalism is the new normal.
Marcos Tejo is the boss’s son. Once, that meant taking over his father’s meat plant when the older man began to suffer from dementia and require nursing home care. But ever since the Transition, when animals became infected with a virus fatal to humans and had to be destroyed, society has been clamoring for a new source of meat, laboring under the belief, reinforced by media and government messaging, that plant proteins would result in malnutrition and ill effects. Now, as is true across the country, Marcos’ slaughterhouse deals in “special meat”—human beings. Though Marcos understands the moral horror of his job supervising the workers who stun, kill, flay, and butcher other humans, he doesn’t feel much since the crib death of his infant son. “One can get used to almost anything,” he muses, “except for the death of a child.” One day, the head of a breeding center sends Marcos a gift: an adult female FGP, a “First Generation Pure,” born and bred in captivity. As Marcos lives with his product, he gradually begins to awaken to the trauma of his past and the nightmare of his present. This is Bazterrica’s first novel to appear in America, though she is widely published in her native Argentina, and it could have been inelegant, using shock value to get across ideas about the inherent brutality of factory farming and the cruelty of governments and societies willing to sacrifice their citizenry for power and money. It is a testament to Bazterrica’s skill that such a bleak book can also be a page-turner.
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982150-92-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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