A well-developed and compelling parallel-world tale.
In Rirdan’s SF thriller, an ex-Special Ops serviceman becomes the unlikely last line of defense of a parallel world built on eco-efficiency and civic engagement.
Ex-U.S. Army soldier Chris Walden doesn’t take his obligations lightly. However, he finds that his recent tour of duty of Iraq pales in comparison to what’s revealed in his friend Ronny’s basement: a portal that allows them to access a parallel world—specifically, a place called Americana. As Chris quickly finds out, Americana’s lush green pastures are in a class all their own; it’s a world with many differences, in which American troops never went to Iraq, agriculture works without pesticides, and residents celebrate Independence Day on March 4. Workplaces run on a communal model, aviation has long been phased out as ecologically unfriendly, and baseball teams, such as the Boulder Sluggers, don’t play for money. It’s the kind of society that’s “one butter churn away from Amish,” as Ronny scornfully puts it, during a break from his latest visit. “It’s like Pleasantville with self-driving buggies.” However, the availability of polygamous marriages, which Chris begins exploring with sisters Sandra and Kate Allen, may cause Ronny to revise his opinion. As world-weary Chris gets ready to settle into Americana’s naturalist ethos for good, Ronny only sees dollar signs, and he’s willing to get others involved to exploit his basement portal for profit. Everything that Chris loves is suddenly up for grabs, setting up a classic conflict that readers are sure to find compelling: Just how far will a person go to defend what they love? Over the course of this novel, Rirdan keeps the story humming along, keeping readers consistently engaged without getting bogged down in his parallel world’s day-to-day nitty-gritty, which is always a potential trap awaiting those who write fiction involving parallel realities of any kind. The edgier sexual themes, brought in by the polygamous relationships, may trouble more traditional readers; however, the author handles these issues subtly, and they don’t intrude on narrative’s larger concerns, which are bound to stir up lively discussions about the nature of service and sacrifice.
A well-developed and compelling parallel-world tale.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9798992609004
Page Count: 327
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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