A brisk SF novel with a richly described setting that should be able to sustain a series.
Weisbeck’s speculative series starter introduces a divided future world ravaged by a pandemic.
Mercy Perching is a leading scientist in the Sanctuary of Europe, studying the FossilFlu, a disease that’s wiped out much of the planet’s population. At Europe’s Council of Leaders, she’s surprised to find Europe isn’t the only Sanctuary; there’s also the Sanctuary of Asia and the Sanctuary of Americas. In the latter, scientists have encountered a mutation of the FossilFlu that’s dangerous to both humans and animals. Mercy is sent to work with their scientists on a cure. Once there, she finds a completely different world where science has solved many problems that Europe has yet to conquer. The Americas have built a shield to protect them from the harsh environment; and unlike Europe, they have live vegetation—and their people can go outside. They also have human/animal hybrids called Chimera and a tense political debate about how the hybrids fit into society—a rift their leader, the Prime, says she’s trying to heal. Mercy becomes involved with Chase, a fellow scientist and dog/human hybrid, and finds that the mutations have political origins. This puts her, her research, and her new relationship with Chase in the middle of a burgeoning civil war, which kicks off the rest of the series. In this first book, Weisbeck has created a colorful future and populated it with a variety of distinct creatures, and she ably expands and deepens the worldbuilding as the book goes on. Indeed, the vivid atmosphere is the book’s greatest asset and should please SF fans; it also gives Weisbeck a solid foundation for future installments. There are a few minor flaws, including plot elements that could have been better fleshed out; for instance, Sen. Arjun is an avatar of the Purists, an anti-Chimera political group, who’s apparently meant to be a foil for the Prime, but so little time is devoted to him and his group that they feel like afterthoughts. The story zips along, but there’s occasionally clumsy prose, as when a whale is said to move with “brevity.”
A brisk SF novel with a richly described setting that should be able to sustain a series.Pub Date: June 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5272-6150-1
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.
A processing plant manager struggles with the grim realities of a society where cannibalism is the new normal.
Marcos Tejo is the boss’s son. Once, that meant taking over his father’s meat plant when the older man began to suffer from dementia and require nursing home care. But ever since the Transition, when animals became infected with a virus fatal to humans and had to be destroyed, society has been clamoring for a new source of meat, laboring under the belief, reinforced by media and government messaging, that plant proteins would result in malnutrition and ill effects. Now, as is true across the country, Marcos’ slaughterhouse deals in “special meat”—human beings. Though Marcos understands the moral horror of his job supervising the workers who stun, kill, flay, and butcher other humans, he doesn’t feel much since the crib death of his infant son. “One can get used to almost anything,” he muses, “except for the death of a child.” One day, the head of a breeding center sends Marcos a gift: an adult female FGP, a “First Generation Pure,” born and bred in captivity. As Marcos lives with his product, he gradually begins to awaken to the trauma of his past and the nightmare of his present. This is Bazterrica’s first novel to appear in America, though she is widely published in her native Argentina, and it could have been inelegant, using shock value to get across ideas about the inherent brutality of factory farming and the cruelty of governments and societies willing to sacrifice their citizenry for power and money. It is a testament to Bazterrica’s skill that such a bleak book can also be a page-turner.
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982150-92-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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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