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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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