A satirical thriller that offers witty observations in a sprawling framework.
An alternately playful and serious novel set in a vaguely limned dystopian future.
Debut novelist Crawford, like most satirists, extrapolates from aspects of current reality to see where things might lead. This story begins in a depressing pocket of poverty reminiscent of Central America, from which the protagonist, Max, escapes to the U.S., aka “the Deadly Serious Republic” or “the DSR.” Once there, he searches for his hapless father, Dingle. Enter the other main character, Memie Benzlo, one of the richest young women in the DSR (and the world), who gravitates toward communism despite her suffocating wealth. Max and Memie make an unlikely team, with Memie continually spouting off and running off, and levelheaded Max doing his best to keep her from getting killed. The early chapters are picaresque and relatively lighthearted, and Crawford apparently enjoys taking potshots at easy targets such as runaway capitalism, casual violence, rampant privatization (with the Bombs R Us Corporation) and parties of all stripes (with the Neo Nazis, the Not so Neo Nazis, the Nasty Peoples Party, and others). He also has fun with barely disguised names, such as the city of New Pork, the economist Milton Trickledown, and the media baron Robert Newsdock. When things get ugly and people start getting killed, Max and Memie go on the run for their lives—although Memie, the ideologue, refuses to take it seriously. However, this is where the book turns into a genuine suspense thriller, and although aficionados of such novels may feel that Crawford has yet to master the genre, he certainly gives it a good try. The heroes flit from corrupt African islands to corrupt Caribbean ones, battling evil all the way, and their final nemesis, Leopold Duraka, could have stepped out of a James Bond movie. The ending is both surprising and unsettling, as the author slyly indicts a society in which there are no real winners. Those who agree with the author’s left-leaning politics will most enjoy this novel, but those who don’t may still enjoy its cleverness.
A satirical thriller that offers witty observations in a sprawling framework.Pub Date: June 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483648958
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2014
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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