Wildly thought-provoking climate SF with a fascinating time-travel twist.
Schaefer’s eco-thriller follows a group of researchers as they investigate a potentially cataclysmic event, the likes of which hasn’t occurred in almost a million years.
While in Alaska studying polar anomalies, Ethan Sites barely escapes with his life after witnessing inexplicable phenomena including intense northern lights, off-the-charts magnetic fluctuations, flash fires, and methane bubbling out of the permafrost. After he is saved by Sara Gathers, a cetacean biologist (whose mother, Julia, is the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and Mason Hahn, a fisherman and pilot, the group is tasked with following the magnetic North Pole as it moves southward, wreaking havoc as it travels. Entire pods of whales, confused by the changing magnetic fields, beach themselves. Thousands of birds fly aimlessly in circles. Electromagnetic interference makes flying aircraft impossible and disrupts the world’s power grids. As Sara and company begin to put the pieces of the planetary mystery together, they witness something unexplainable: After another powerful Pole movement, the group discovers dozens of dead or dying woolly mammoths (“Most of their large manes and long hair that carpeted them for warmth had burned away. The stench was overwhelming”). Before they can figure out how—and why—animals that have been extinct for 10,000 years are suddenly appearing in the modern day, Sara and the others are pulled into the past by the strange atmospheric phenomena. While the narrative features an ensemble cast of well-developed characters (Mason’s ship captain, Ray Barron, steals the show), nonstop action and adventure, breakneck pacing, and more than a few bombshell plot twists, it’s the underlying reality of the looming global disaster that gives this novel its brass-knuckle punch: “Soon, climate change will reach a tipping point. In ten years, one-third of all plant and animal species living in the nineteenth century will be gone.”
Wildly thought-provoking climate SF with a fascinating time-travel twist.Pub Date: April 11, 2024
ISBN: 9798989060863
Page Count: 432
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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