A political and military thriller that details the relationship between the global economy and the fallout of its wars, both figurative and real.
This exceptionally detailed, believable account of the Iraq War and its many corporate symbionts and leeches transverses the globe in the popular style of Clancy and his ilk. This novel, however, is written with a more critical gaze on the corporations and independent contractors that feed off global insecurity. Despite this view, it remains blessedly objective in its characterizations of the individuals who work within the economy and on the frontlines of 21st-century warfare. Risher has a keen eye for the cinematic and happily owes debts not just to his literary forbearers but to intense, personal war films like The Hurt Locker. The book’s opening sequence, with its sympathetic mother and baby turned martyr and improvised explosive device, is effective and chillingly rendered. The kaleidoscopic array of characters and actions—from hardnosed special-ops studs, to back-dealing manipulative fund managers, such as the not-so-subtly named Jake Gamble—is handled with grace and confidence. For example, a business decision in Venezuela leads to dead men and women thousands of miles away. While the book is solid topical thriller genre through-and-through, introducing no new character prototypes, the prose sets this story apart. Amid scenes of battle terror and corporate intrigue, Risher refuses to be anything but detailed and sometimes even florid in his writing, giving the world extra dimension. However, there are times when the reader is overloaded with detail, including when Jet Maier, an operative and resident badass, is overly sketched almost to the point of parody. Yet this is a rare misstep in an otherwise surefooted novel. By the time Gamble starts to navigate the labyrinth of consequence of which he has always been the overseer, a stunning metamorphosis of character from potential villain to sympathetic protagonist is achieved. Readers will expect Gamble to get a vicious comeuppance, but as in any good novel, his relationship to himself and his world changes as much as our relationship to him as a character. This seems to be the novel’s thesis—that it might not be too late for the world to change its ways. A surprisingly complex novel with a simple, urgent message about corruption and redemption.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Kindle Edition
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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