An odd novel that shouldn't work but somehow does.
A police officer connects with a mysterious race of aquatic humans in this inventive debut.
Cara Gray, the protagonist of visual artist Musgrave’s debut novel, took an unlikely route to becoming a cop. She joined an activist camp after school but soon ditched it to join the police force, where she’s initially assigned to work in data surveillance. While she’s good at her job, she fails to prevent a school bombing that kills more than 1,400 people and is demoted, becoming a police liaison to the community of lambdas, a race of small humans that have adapted to living in water. The lambdas “keep a very low profile,” making their homes in flooded basements and working low-income jobs. They’re also the target of increasing harassment and violence from hateful people who believe that a splinter group of militant lambdas were behind the school bombing; they endure beatings and graffiti saying things like “fuck off fishman scum.” Cara becomes increasingly fascinated with the lambdas; meanwhile, the police experiment with a mysterious data processing entity; Cara’s mother interacts with an avatar of her missing husband; and Cara finds herself frustrated at the relationship between her boyfriend and her sentient toothbrush. The novel has an inventive structure, with narrative chapters interspersed with various documents; it can be exhausting, but the reader gets the feeling that’s by design. As weird as the novel sounds, it’s even more so, but Musgrave manages to hold all the threads together, although he does offer readers a healthy number of red herrings and blind alleys. The book is cinematic in an almost Cronenberg-ian way, and even at its most confusing, it’s still a fast-paced (though unsettling) read. Novels like this don’t work unless the author fully commits, and Musgrave does. This isn’t for everybody, but science-fiction readers who favor the bizarre will likely be confused and charmed in equal parts.
An odd novel that shouldn't work but somehow does.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-60945-764-8
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
A multilayered exploration of the complacent as complicit, all within a unique yet relatable magic system.
An orphaned prince on the run gets a chance at freedom if he can become one of his would-be enslavers.
Three years ago, when the Hierarchy killed his family, 17-year-old Vis Solum had to hide in their Republic, bury his rage, and pretend to support the population’s enslavement in order to survive. The Hierarchy is built on Will—a person’s mental and physical energy—ceded by the low to those above them, and then again, all the way to the top of the three pyramids of leadership: Military, Governance, and Religion. Will powers carts and carriages, keeps vaults locked, and gives Will-users inhuman abilities while sapping ceders of their health and life span. So far, Vis has managed to refuse the ritual to cede his Will. Now, he has little more than a year before he legally has to cede or have his Will drained by Sappers. When Senator Quintus Ulciscor Telimus offers Vis the chance to escape ceding for at least another year, and perhaps never do it at all, Vis agrees. The man officially adopts him so he can attend the Catenan Academy, where all students are tested and prepared for the highest Hierarchy positions. If Vis dominates at the Academy, he can choose a position where he doesn’t need to cede or receive Will at all, far away from the Hierarchy. In return, Vis must act as a spy to prove Religion is unearthing a dangerous weapon. Then, when Vis is blackmailed to act as a double agent, everything changes. In order to succeed, he must become one of those he so hates while keeping his true identity a secret. If he doesn’t, he’ll end up dead, or worse. This Roman-inspired fantasy starts slow but more than makes up for it soon enough. With the inevitable comparisons in mind, fans of Pierce Brown's Red Rising will enjoy this book, but it’s darker, deeper, and takes unexpected paths worth traveling. Trust that the author will get you there in the end.
A multilayered exploration of the complacent as complicit, all within a unique yet relatable magic system.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781982141172
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
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