An engaging sequel that crossbreeds established SF characters with a credible extraterrestrial murder mystery.
An American war veteran in the forefront of future space exploration awkwardly turns into a crime investigator when a planetary colony he is replenishing is revealed as a hotbed of intrigue and murder.
In this SF sequel, Alexander continues the chronicles of future tough-guy hero (of Norwegian American descent) Leif Grettison, begun in Starman’s Saga (2019). For newcomers, this caper can largely be savored as a stand-alone. Leif is a battle-scarred veteran of a world conflict whose main intent now is to stay away from a fractious, corrupt Earth that holds no place for a fair-minded, honorable ex-soldier. Yet he repeatedly plays a pivotal role in interstellar hijinks. His formidable one-time enemy/now lover, pilot Yang Yong, wants Leif to accompany her on a routine trip to a newly seeded space colony on a distant hothouse planet ironically called Heaven. They are bringing supplies and fresh pioneers to continue building the beachhead. But arriving on Heaven, Leif finds a polarized, rebellious rabble on the scorching planet (“This heat was like being wrapped in wool blankets and then thrown into a sauna”). It seems the first colonists are actually convicts—runaways, dopers, and shifty Earth refugees. Judging that settling the harsh biome will involve too much uncomfortable work, they are voting to ditch the mission and return home via the supply ship despite the agreement that this was a one-way trip. Leif and company hardly have time to process this when the malcontents’ leader, a much-disliked blackmailer and con man called (pseudonymously) Jerry Whitehead, dies under nonviolent but very suspicious circumstances. Leif finds himself conducting a maladroit Whitehead murder investigation in the middle of a regime change, secrets, lies, politics, and PTSD triggers from all the stuff he thought he left behind. The tale’s whodunit aspect is serviceable, if not spectacular, and relies on a supporting character’s swift (but acceptable) deus ex machina role change. But it’s the solid storytelling, characterization, and fast-paced action that keep this game afoot. Readers who enjoy hard-science SF should be pleased with the biology and worldbuilding elements. And they will perhaps take note that while loads of Alexander’s SF contemporaries have generated many hand-wringing dystopia-o-ramas of global warming, Heaven's climate change has arisen naturally, not due to human industry.
An engaging sequel that crossbreeds established SF characters with a credible extraterrestrial murder mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73619-844-5
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Alton Kremer
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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