A finale that balances intriguing tech with a humane sensibility.
A tech-company intern and her boyfriend must defeat a dangerous artificial-intelligence surveillance network in this third SF novel in a series.
As described in Neurogarden(2020) and Necrogarden (2021), Brenna Patrick, the brilliant CEO and founder of NeuralTech, developed a vast surveillance system called The Garden to catch criminals. It’s powered by artificial intelligence and a computing network of live human beings in coffinlike, fluid-filled pods. After a coup attempt by Brenna’s digital assistant, Hal, she and her intern, Jenny Mercado, were trapped in The Garden; they escaped, but Jenny and her boyfriend, ex-soldier Leo Marino, are now on the run from vicious government operatives who want The Garden for themselves. Col. Gupta, the head of a covert government project to reverse-engineer stolen NeuralTech equipment, sends assassins after Jenny and Leo, even targeting her family home. Leo works to track down the assassins while Jenny and her younger brother, Mateo, find refuge with Brenna—which is a bit dicey, as the women have a relationship that’s both erotic and contentious. There’s also a sadistic secret agent who’s after both women. The key to survival, however, could involve tapping into the unique connection that Jenny and her brother have with The Garden. In this final installment of Vaughn’s trilogy, he successfully manages to make the digital world of The Garden feel tactile and exciting, as when he compares data to “a lump of coal” and then “a newly formed diamond sucking input from every angle and processing it at tachyonic speed.” The author also effectively counterpoints the story’s tension, violence, and danger with moments of humor and affection, as when Brenna—whom Jenny accuses of being a “sociopathic ice bitch”—finds herself unwillingly charmed by the young Mateo. Overall, it’s a taut and entertaining final installment to this cyberthriller tale.
A finale that balances intriguing tech with a humane sensibility.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2021
ISBN: 979-8747295834
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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