Upheaval and strife in a far-future feminist utopia, thoughtfully set forth by the author of The Postman (1985), Earth (1990), etc. On planet Stratos, long isolated from the Human Phylum, women are dominant politically, numerically, and sexually; the most successful women clone themselves to create extended aristocratic families. Only in summer, when the male sexual response peaks, are natural conceptions permitted. Of these births, the boys—excluded from power—assume traditional male occupations like seafaring and piloting, while the girls—``vars''—must compete fiercely for the few openings available to non-clones. The system, stable for hundreds of years, is now threatened by renewed contact with the Human Phylum: ambassador Renna's arrival on Stratos is forcing the ruling families to new intrigues and evaluations, power struggles and realignments. Caught up in the general turmoil, young var Maia- -events are seen from her point of view—acquires survival skills in a hurry, discovering within herself unexpected talents for navigation and problem-solving. The exotic Renna, so unlike the native men, fascinates her. When both are kidnapped by the same revolutionaries, Maia learns from Renna that what she has been taught of history is largely false. Together, the two discover hidden machines and factories surviving from a time before the clones, when men and women fought side by side to repel alien invaders. Finally, Renna dies attempting to escape back to his orbiting ship, while a new and wiser Maia finds herself the object of intense scrutiny by Stratos's ruling clans. Tremendously hard-working, impressive in scope, and cleverly diagrammed, though patchy, dreadfully long-winded, and ultimately done in by characters that never swim into focus. Brin simply has overreached himself.
Pub Date: May 17, 1993
ISBN: 0-553-07645-0
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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