An offbeat tale that’s every bit as unnerving as more traditional sci-fi fare.
Steinsvold (Topological Models of Belief Logics, 2012) offers a novel about an oddball alien visitor.
In 2021, a message appears on the moon that upsets people the world over. The message is simple—“DRINK DIET COKE”—but the Coca-Cola Company denies responsibility for it. The U.S. government assembles a team to investigate. One of its members is former NASA scientist Markus West, a man with a lifelong fear of encountering aliens. When the team concludes that Coca-Cola had nothing to do with the moon message, the public becomes even more outraged. Exactly one year after the first appearance of the Coke message, a UFO is seen hovering over the White House, and Markus is called in again. The UFO is in the shape of a cylinder and appears to have the markings of a giant Campbell’s soup can. It’s silly, to be sure—but is it dangerous? Soon enough, an alien emerges from the vessel and explains all. Although he’s not quite as slick as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Zaphod Beeblebrox, he’s far more conversant than E.T. He comes to be known as “Ralph,” and although he’s playful and manages to form a bond with Markus, he also brings a warning of much more dangerous aliens to come. But can Ralph be trusted, or is his zaniness simply a distraction? Overall, this novel delivers an unusual take on the alien invasion story, to say the least. Death rays and abductions may be frightening, but would anyone be ready for an extraterrestrial visitor who has a sense of humor? The book’s comedy can be a little on the nose at times; for example, the bad aliens are known as the “Kardashians,” although this supposedly has nothing to do with the reality stars. Still, readers will be carried along by their desire to find out what will happen when the bad aliens arrive, and what part Ralph will wind up playing in the whole affair. It all moves along quite breezily, avoiding many clichés of the alien-invasion genre while still delivering a frightening lesson.
An offbeat tale that’s every bit as unnerving as more traditional sci-fi fare.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-942546-34-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Medallion Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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
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