A compelling novel to tease readers’ paranoia.
Chaney imagines a society under total surveillance in this debut sci-fi thriller.
“Why do most boys wish to be firemen?” wonders Marus Winde as he thinks back to his boyhood dream. “It was noble to put out fires, yes. But, it was nobler to prevent them.” Prevention is Marus’ task: he’s a Protector in a time when state security is so robust that it can discover and foil crimes before they occur. Stopping premeditated crimes isn’t enough, though, and Marus works to refine the government’s “Internal Indicator Initiative,” a system meant to predict even unpremeditated crimes by monitoring the population for signifiers of violent behavior. After years of hard work, the initiative is finally ready for implementation—but then the unpredicted abduction of Marus’ son from a soccer game throws Marus’ world into chaos. In a society with no crime, such an incident shakes public confidence in the surveillance state. But if someone has taken advantage of the flaws in the algorithm, then so can Marus. He must go outside the law, outsmart the system that he helped to create, and undermine the compact that the citizens of the New Era have made with their Protectors—all in order to preserve the safety of his family. Chaney writes in tight, confident prose that immerses readers in the fictional world while also summoning ever increasing levels of tension and unease. Her palette is the innocuous corporate jargon of technocracy: “Threat indicators added up, increasing the individual’s total, quantified risk. The higher the level, the greater the threat, the most dangerous of which required immediate, classified action.” Although the premise evokes the work of genre predecessors, such as George Orwell and Philip K. Dick, Chaney’s vision, with its data collection and popular support, has been updated to fit the concerns of the 21st century. She may not have reinvented the wheel, but the wheel she has built is uniquely suited for today’s moment of technological discomfort.
A compelling novel to tease readers’ paranoia.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9968243-0-9
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Corner Canyon Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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