A slight but well-crafted and heartfelt effort.
Vaughn, who's competent in many subgenres, eschews werewolves (Kitty Saves the World, 2015), superheroes (Dreams of the Golden Age, 2014), dragons (Refuge of Dragons, 2017), and spacefarers (Martians Abroad, 2017) for a smaller-scale story, an intimate post-apocalyptic mystery.
Several decades after the Fall—a series of epidemics and devastating storms that have killed off most of the human population—survivors in California live in an interdependent confederation of towns along what they now call the Coast Road. Every household produces only what it needs and can't have children unless granted a banner for one by the town committee. The brown-clad investigators both look into suspected violations (including bannerless pregnancies) and mete out appropriate judgments. When Sero, an unpopular but skilled handyman, dies under suspicious circumstances, Enid, a young investigator, travels to Pasadan to determine the truth. As she and her colleague Tomas examine the evidence, Enid confronts both the resistance of the townspeople and the memory of a journey which marked a turning point in her life. Despite the worldwide apocalypse, this is actually a deeply personal story about one woman and the mores of small-town living, a deft portrait of a society departed so completely from the complexities of the now-destroyed civilization (except for some technological scraps) that survivors don’t even understand what it is they’ve lost. This is exemplified by a performance of “Dust in the Wind”; the musician believes that it is a song from Kansas rather than a song by Kansas—either way, Kansas is so impossibly distant so as to border on the mythical. Perhaps surviving humans (with the exception of a few desperate scavengers) would develop into a community where murder is rare, most crimes are petty, and shunning is a devastating punishment; it would be nice to think so. The characters definitely aren't angels, but they're still a pleasant and reasonably plausible departure from the grim sort that usually populate this subgenre.
A slight but well-crafted and heartfelt effort.Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-94730-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.
Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.
The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-88743-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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