Fun tech-fiction wrapped in black helicopter conspiracy.
In his latest, Suarez (Kill Decision, 2012, etc.) follows the adventures of eccentric genius Jon Grady, who has run afoul of the Federal Bureau of Technology Control.
The BTC is a Cold War relic, an agency spawned by the supersecret government nether world. Cold fusion, artificial intelligence, quantum computing with holographic presence, an immortal strand of DNA and countless other advances are quarantined—but employed—by the BTC, which theoretically is "assessing their social, political, environmental, and economic impacts with the goal of preserving social order." That means Jon Grady, a self-taught researcher without think-tank or university backing, draws BTC’s notice when he employs exotic particle states to create a gravity mirror. Grady’s kidnapped by the BTC, but he refuses to cooperate and employ his knowledge of manipulating gravity for their shadowy purposes. Grady’s relegated to Hibernity, BTC’s prison, and BTC co-opts his technology. The book is premise-driven, with characters running to type. The wizard nerd, Grady, has avuncular advocates like Dr. Bertrand Alcot, supportive retired professor, and Archibald Chattopadhyay, nuclear physicist and a fellow Hibenity prisoner, as guides. Hedrick, BTC chief, is self-important, an authoritarian under a benign shell. Morrison, BTU security, former military special ops, employs his squabbling clones as staff. Alexa, with altered DNA that "give[s] her longevity, intelligence, and perfect form," is BTC’s biotech wonder. A self-appointed prophet, Cotton, head of the Winnowers, wants to halt technology’s progress. With BTC under scrutiny of a new U.S. director of intelligence and Hedrick coping with breakaway BTC elements gone rouge in Russia and Asia, Grady escapes Hibernity and sets out to bring BTC down. The story is atomic-weighted with science terminology from college-level texts, but the narrative is easily understandable. There’s a thread left unraveled and a plot hole related to a character’s scientific and technological capabilities, but the narrative rockets along right up to a good-versus-evil battle that would be better resolved on the IMAX screen than the page.
Fun tech-fiction wrapped in black helicopter conspiracy.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-525-95318-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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