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SILHOUETTE

Name: SILHOUETTE
Author: Dave Swavely
ISBN: 978-1-250-00149-8

by Dave Swavely ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012

Overly cautious; needs juice.

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West coast post-disaster yarn from first-time novelist Swavely.

Following a devastating earthquake, San Francisco’s police chief, Saul Rabin, formed a private corporation called the Bay Area Security Service and became the destroyed region’s de facto ruler. The rest of the U.S. has its own troubles and is happy for Rabin to rule with an iron fist and steer an independent course. The privileged few, including Rabin’s lieutenants, Darien Anthony, first-person narrator Michael Ares and Saul’s son, Paul, live in remote, heavily securitized enclaves. The only opposition is provided by ex-employee Harold Harris and his gadfly followers. Then, Paul tells Michael that Darien has been murdered; worse, in the car when the bomb exploded was Michael’s daughter. Lynn, Michael’s wife, falls apart as Michael leads the investigation, which goes nowhere. Then, Paul reveals that the murderer was—Michael! According to Paul, Saul had a microchip implanted in Michael’s head, which allows Saul to take control, which explains why Michael has no memory of the incident. But what could Saul’s motive be? Maybe it has something to do with the anti-gravity technology BASS has developed, by which means Saul is about to become a power player on the world stage. Unfortunately, Swavely offers few clues as to how this post-quake scenario developed—routine exposition in the middle of an action sequence doesn’t cut it—and no idea how the high-tech toys might work. For the rest, all the pieces link up, though the general affect is flat, and less patient readers might find themselves muttering, dude, loosen up!

Overly cautious; needs juice.

Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-250-00149-8

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012

Categories:

SCIENCE FICTION

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New York Times Bestseller

DEVOLUTION

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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Awards & Accolades

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Our Verdict

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New York Times Bestseller

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.