A well-crafted and thought-provoking thriller that will challenge political minds of every stripe.
The United States transforms into a constitutional monarchy and a teenage girl becomes the face of historic change in this debut SF novel.
In 2078, the U.S. Senate amends the Constitution to allow a vote that will dissolve the federal government. Sen. Nathan Corson, author of the joint resolution, nevertheless feels ill after the vote succeeds. He plans to leave Washington, D.C., with his 17-year-old daughter, Jamie, and 13-year-old son, Ben, immediately. Ever since the Pittsburgh Virus epidemic occurred 18 years ago, with a 200-mile barrier along the Mississippi River resulting in 58 million deaths, the country has been spiraling downward. But where the government failed to help citizens, the New World army rose to compensate. The army’s leader, Creighton Ashwill, hopes to replace congressional gridlock and rancor with a fresh, young monarch whom the populace will adore. As Nathan prepares to drive Jamie to Boston, where she'll attend Harvard, Ashwill arrives at their home. He insists that she become the New World’s monarch. Soldiers forcefully abscond with Jamie, who begins her new life as Queen Raisa Cordova. She must undergo basic military training and learn how to negotiate with the likes of President Kaine of the nearby Constitutional Republic of America, comprised of several former states. Jamie questions why she’s been chosen over more qualified candidates, never guessing that the answer lies in her genes. Felton’s intellectually potent series opener is essential reading for history and thriller buffs alike. Intriguing quotes from presidents like Thomas Jefferson bolster Ashwill’s argument, as in the line about the Constitution possessing a “mixed aspect of monarchy and republicanism.” As Jamie becomes emotionally close with Lt. Alexander King, she learns that Ashwill’s deviousness knows no bounds. The Pittsburgh Virus brings a further jolt of topicality to readers with lives reshaped by Covid-19. The Pittsburgh infection also allows a formidable twist to keep the story from simply becoming a political what-if scenario. Playfully, Felton sends Jamie and Alexander to a dance club that proves the 1980s will never die. Crisp pacing and prose set up an excellent finale that presents stunning ramifications for the sequel.
A well-crafted and thought-provoking thriller that will challenge political minds of every stripe.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-69-378709-6
Page Count: 351
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
