Alien-contact/ancient-astronaut ``infotainment'' from Aldrin, the second man on the moon (Men from Earth, 1989, etc.) and leading novelist Barnes (Mother of Storms, 1994, etc.). By 2006, various space programs proceed in desultory fashion, spurred mostly by private enterprise and the prospect of space tourism. Then a message arrives from Alpha Centauri revealing the presence of alien encyclopedias on the moon and Mars, left by visiting alien Tiberians in 7000 B.C. In an attempt to recover the encyclopedia on the moon, Earth's leading astronaut, Chris Terence, dies, and the encyclopedia is destroyed. So, a multinational effort gears up to reach Mars and recover the information at all costs. Among all that alien advanced technology, investigators discover, is a chronicle describing how the Tiberians—``alien'' mostly in a metaphorical sense—sent forth starships from their doomed homeworld to colonize as many new planets as they could. The first Tiberian expedition, touching down in the Middle East, resulted in a bloodbath and their enslavement by Stone Age humans. Fifty years later, a wiser second expedition rescued the survivors and determined just in time that the Tiberians couldn't survive on Earth permanently due to biochemical incompatibilities; they retreated to the moon and then to Mars, where they died out. Bulging with facts and explanations—most of them, unfortunately, at the expense of plot, character, and narrative momentum. Still, Aldrin brings an unmistakable hands-on realism to the details of space exploration, and Barnes lends his expertise to the overall structure and packaging. (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 17, 1996
ISBN: 0-446-51854-9
Page Count: 576
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
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
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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