An engaging, low-key, near-future techno-thriller with a strong hero battling sexism.
A software engineer perfects a system that delivers fragrances vividly over computers, but is her programming responsible for a deadly military mishap?
In this techno-thriller, Dustin borrows a page/screenshot from the early dot-com era, circa 2000, when creating odors and effectively reproducing smells over computer networks actually became a reality—briefly. In the real world, scant commercial interest in the prospect of being able to smell your PC made the gimmick a technological nonstarter. But the author takes this curio and sets the story’s premise in a near future in which the Covid-19 pandemic still rages, and the virus’s infamous symptom of loss of smell puts a new complexion on things. Artima “Arty” Ressols, a single mom on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., is a software engineer at Artificial Intelligence Systems Enterprises, which is in the cutthroat business of vying for government contracts. Arty was born with hyperosmia, extremely acute olfactory senses. With this talent, she has devised “scent and smell” (SAS) software and hardware that can deliver odors—to soothe, stimulate, unlock memories, and generally enhance numerous human functions and performance. It’s not just for more vibrant gaming; users of Arty’s SAS watch are better able to detect Covid-19 infection. But there is an unexpected crisis. A United States Navy aircraft carrier in the Pacific, outfitted with AISE systems, has suffered an inexplicable missile misfire, sending a lethal volley at a Russian ship and triggering a serious international incident. Arty learns that her SAS system happened to be engaged during the malfunction. Coincidence? Or something more ominous? The hero fights for the right to investigate in person and find out why what she’s hearing doesn’t pass her smell test.
More a drama than a futuristic suspense yarn, Dustin’s series opener churns at a low but steady boil. While some readers may wish for more action, others (especially women) will welcome this story as a 180-degree turn away from Michael Crichton’s blockbuster Disclosure, a prominent succès de scandalein 1994. That bestseller had a Silicon Valley setting and the worst feminist stereotype of a manipulative corporate vixen using #MeToo–type accusations and other sexual wiles while pulling off big-money shenanigans in virtual reality. Whether today’s readers buy into Dustin’s hard sell of a techno-societal paradigm shift based on digi-smells, Arty’s story carries verisimilitude. This sympathetic hero copes not with high-speed chases but the challenges of raising an adolescent and dealing with an ex-husband who betrayed her. She also faces back-stabbing and chronic career devaluation (all the worse because her male boss and his smarmy pals seem truly unaware they are even doing it) and worries about a sick brother sinking lower and lower into the coils of Covid. “When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women; but if a woman is successful, people of both genders liked her less,” comments an observer of Arty’s plight. And, unlike Crichton, Dustin does not infuse the material with too many flourishes of STEM jargon. But there is an appendix with references to real-life incidents quoted in the text where scientific advances went awry. As for the double standards and unfair hands dealt to women, proof that it really happens is all too unnecessary.
An engaging, low-key, near-future techno-thriller with a strong hero battling sexism. (disclaimer, references)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-63-619963-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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