A fine spacefaring adventure story on a macroscopic scale.
In Jeffrey’s SF sequel, an earthling must thwart a shadowy conspiracy that could lead to the end of the universe.
It’s 2217, and humanity can travel from an environmentally devastated Earth to distant stars via “voidoids”—invisible space gates of an unknown nature. But even with thousands of planets to explore, only one Earth-like world, Silvanus, has been found. Navigator Aidan Macallan contacted and explored it in Through a Forest of Stars(2017), and it turned out to be off-limits to colonists, due to a sentient entity there called the Rete; it’s not hostile, but it’s wary of the destructive potential of Homo sapiens. Now, on Earth, radical environmentalists and a reactionary, anti-science political buffoon named Houda Thunkit are at the forefront of a movement against space exploration. At the same time, voidoids are becoming unstable and closing down, potentially stranding outposts, ships, and colonies across the cosmos forever. Aiden now commands his own state-of-the-art starship, the Sun Wolf, and he and his crew form an uneasy alliance with Earth’s military to determine who’s disrupting the voidoids. The stakes rise considerably when scientists reveal that the gates are key to keeping all matter in balance; without them, the universe will dissipate into nothingness. Jeffrey’s yarn is a dandy cosmic mystery conceived on the vast scale of an Arthur C. Clarke or Olaf Stapledon epic. Some moments have a New Age–y tone, and it’s a bit odd when jazz music, a real-life pursuit of the author, is revealed to be particularly important to the plot. But there’s a gallery of well-drawn, diverse characters that may pleasantly remind readers of Star Trek; a memorably sinister cabal of villains; and even a smattering of romance. There’s also no shortage of imaginative perils along the way.
A fine spacefaring adventure story on a macroscopic scale.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9986742-2-3
Page Count: 403
Publisher: JeffreyJazz Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.
The fourth and final volume in the Terra Ignota series, a science fantasy set on a 25th-century Earth where people affiliate by philosophy and interest instead of geography.
For the first time in centuries, the world is seized by war—once the combatants actually figure out how to fight one. While rivalries among the Hives provide several motives for conflict, primary among them is whether J.E.D.D. Mason, the heir to various political powers and apparently a god from another universe in human form, should assume absolute rule over the world and transform it for the better. Gathering any large group to further the progress of the war or the possibility for peace is hampered by the loss of the world transit system of flying cars and the global communications network, both shut down by parties unknown, indicating a hidden and dangerous faction manipulating the situation for its own ends. As events play out, they bear a strong resemblance to aspects of the Iliad and the Odyssey, suggesting the persistent influence of Bridger, a deceased child who was also probably a god. Is tragedy inevitable, or can the characters defy their apparent fates? This often intriguing but decidedly peculiar chimera of a story seems to have been a philosophical experiment, but it’s difficult to determine just what was being tested. The worldbuilding—part science, part magic—doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny, and the political structure defies comprehension. The global government consists of an oligarchy of people deeply and intimately connected by love and hate on a scale which surpasses the royal dynasties of old, and it includes convicted felons among their number. Perhaps the characters are intended as an outsized satiric comment on the way politicians embrace expediency over morality or personal feelings, but these supposedly morally advanced potentates commit so many perverse atrocities against one another it is difficult to engage with them as people. At times, they seem nearly as alien as J.E.D.D. Mason.
Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7806-4
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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