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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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