Sci-fi fans will want to read this story of #SocialMediaDystopianism before it becomes a reality.
In Minh’s (Nomad X, 2012) sci-fi novel set in the near future, a filmmaker’s missing wife is accused of terrorism, and he searches for her at the adults-only resort she envisioned—a Las Vegas–style city governed by social media.
Cedric Travers’ directing career faded when YouTubers made Hollywood movies obsolete. Now, circa 2027, he seems more dispirited than dismayed that his estranged wife, Mila Webb, has vanished. She masterminded Eutopia, a resort metropolis built on Native American land and re-creating, with high-tech kitsch, the ambiance of a past Europe; the real, war-torn Europe no longer gets many tourists. Visitors and transient inhabitants of Eutopia include leading social media “influencers” and wannabe celebrities who monetize their stays by livestreaming their experiences—including outbreaks of crime and violence that seem suspiciously staged. Mila’s disappearance has a connection to a brutal bombing of the local, fake Louvre. Travers enters the city to find answers and plunges into its intrigue and artifice. He also dallies with social media femmes fatales, such as Sacha Villanova, a snooping investigative reporter, and A’rore, a cyborg supermodel who’s Eutopia’s “main influencer.” There are cameos of real-life figures, such as former boxer Floyd Mayweather and Donald Trump’s son, Barron, but the author’s sure, steady voice seldom ventures into satire. However, the missing-Mila plotline, which seems tailor-made for cybernoir, evaporates into a click-thru world obsessed with ads, emojis, analytics, fame, youth, and materialism. This bracing story is a great ride, overall, even if the ending offers little resolution. But the cutting-edge tech has a short sell-by date; time will tell whether this novel ages as well as, for example, past futuristic narratives about incredible secrets hidden on floppy disks.
Sci-fi fans will want to read this story of #SocialMediaDystopianism before it becomes a reality.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947856-76-9
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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