A thought-provoking SF tale recalling the heady works of William Gibson and Philip K. Dick.
In Rozental’s dystopic novel, one man descends into madness—or possibly finds transcendence—as he struggles to distinguish between reality, hallucinations, and AI virtual worlds.
Set in a near future in which Venice and other coastal cities are underwater, Paris has been incinerated in a nuclear blast, and surviving cities like Moscow are plagued by permanent rolling blackouts, the vast majority of humanity finds escape in the Flow, a virtual-reality simulation of the world that’s powered by users’ subconscious desires. The story follows Nikolai Vasilyev, who’s a shadow of the man he used to be. Once a renowned actor, he’s now a down-and-out alcoholic struggling to come to grips with the death of his wife, who died years earlier. Essentially begging for some vegetables and a bottle of vodka at a store in an impoverished Moscow neighborhood, Nikolai agrees to deliver a gift (a wooden case containing two glass beakers filled with a transparent liquid) to the store proprietor’s cousin. But the simple deed goes awry as Nikolai questions whether he’s hallucinating, institutionalized in a mental hospital, stuck inside the Flow, or a spy in a secret program run by an AI research institute. With what might be the spirit of his dead wife leading him through a surreal dreamscape, Nikolai finally discovers the mind-blowing truth. Powered by an unreliable narrator and set in an all-too-plausible future inhabited by zombified VR users who have lost touch with the real world, the mind-bending narrative works so well in large part because of the author’s utterly compelling prose style. Rozental’s use of darkly lyrical imagery throughout is an undeniable strength: Old apple trees loom in the darkness as “huge spiders,” a woman’s wrinkled hands and crooked fingers resemble “the branches of a rain-starved tree,” and a white church melts into the darkness “like a lump of sugar in a cup of hot coffee.”
A thought-provoking SF tale recalling the heady works of William Gibson and Philip K. Dick.Pub Date: July 19, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
For readers of the once-popular dystopian YA novels who are now all grown up.
In a distant future, after the Last War when the human population became endangered, a new society formed from the ashes, strictly to optimize procreation.
But not procreation between just anyone. This society, ruled by the Illum—a mysterious authoritarian group—assigns mates to select for the best traits and to breed out defects, to grow the Elite population living in the clouds. Protagonist Emeline is a stubborn and bored young woman, working her days away on the ground as a Minor Defect—one of the class of women waiting to be approved for mating with an Elite, and hoping to never be banished further from society. Emeline’s instincts are apparently to reject the rigid decorum of her society, but she spends years trying to follow the rules set out for her, or at least dissociates enough not to challenge her way of life, until one day an elusive and charming man, Hal, walks into her office to talk about art. The same day, she is approved for mating and matched with Collin, the youngest member of the Illum, in the sort of pairing that hasn’t happened in decades. Courtship with Collin is full of luxury—fancy dinners and balls in the clouds—but also lies and days of discovering secrets kept from her, while trying to keep the Elite’s rumors and malicious Press at bay. Caught between these two men, with their own agendas, and so many unanswered questions, Emeline must decide what she wants, if she can want anything at all. With a rebellion rising in secret and the repression of the Illum close at hand, she’ll find what she’s willing to lose for the ability to choose for herself. The dystopian worldbuilding is underdeveloped at best, so get swept up in discovering truth from lies quickly before it starts to fall apart in your hands.
For readers of the once-popular dystopian YA novels who are now all grown up.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9798217090990
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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