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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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