A whimsical, thought-provoking, if sometimes opaque, look at the magic of existence.
An experimental novel loosely explores consciousness and existence.
It is September 2022. The narrator of this brief, swirling tale is registering to audit classes at Princeton University. The audience is soon addressed directly. Readers will travel “upon every verb” that Clovis writes. And so connections are examined in a series of short chapters that are often no more than a paragraph or two. For instance, Chapter 14 declares that “story, myth and metaphor connect US in the quantum universe at the speed of light.” Myth is a thread that binds all that humans know: “From the ancient pyramids to space sciences of NASA there is the connection of myth.” Other themes that are weaved into the work include references to Albert Einstein. Chapter 24 reminds readers that Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics on Nov. 9, 1922. Then there are reflections on the oddities of quantum physics. Chapter 29 explains that the unseen energy in the quantum field is the Divine. Love is also important. It is love that is “the only reality that lies in the heart of creation.” The work concludes with a series of appendices. These portions, like the chapters of the book, are kept short. The appendices continue to investigate topics such as synchronicity, the concept that “mental and physical events are interrelated.” It is an idea that goes back to Jung, whose work mimics “aspects of Einstein’s theory of relativity.”
Even with all the diverse musings (and a list of references), the work comes in at under 50 pages. The chapters move from topic to topic without constraints. With such a cursory treatment of complex subjects, much is left open to interpretation. The audience may not have typically linked myth, NASA, and the labors of Einstein together, yet here they are. Readers are indeed set to travel upon the verbs of the writer. The journey certainly goes to places they might not expect. Yet some subjects can prove more puzzling than revelatory. Something may receive a brief mention once and then never again. Chapter 19 consists of how someone named Charlie Somma has spent a decade at Princeton, where “horticulture meets living landscapes.” The entire chapter consists of a single sentence. Who exactly Somma is and what he has to do with anything else in the book are left open to interpretation. Nor is the meaning of “horticulture meets living landscapes” entirely clear. Nevertheless, other portions prove to be strikingly distinct. Chapter 21 consists of one sentence: “And the still masked minority are trying to live through this Covid MOMENT.” It is a simple observation yet an astute one. The same can be said for a mention of the 10 millionth visitor to the Princeton University library. Items like 10 million library visitors, the famous Einstein, and a total lunar eclipse make for poetic imagery. That the eclipse occurred on Nov. 8, 2022, helps tie together a rough timeline. In the end, readers can do nearly endless traveling on the tangents the book has to offer. The universe has room for it all.
A whimsical, thought-provoking, if sometimes opaque, look at the magic of existence.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2022
ISBN: 9798765237472
Page Count: 102
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.
This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’ half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593199336
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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