An engaging, time-jumping sequel that skillfully brings Nazi supernatural secrets into SF territory.
A teenage girl of the near future hailing from a remarkable family discovers that a half brother is part of an incredible cyber/psychic experiment, providing a literal window into an ancestor’s World War II years.
Dustin offers a YA-skewed follow-up to her techno-thriller Artima’s Travels (2020). Erstwhile hero Artima “Arty” Ressols is a single mom whose advanced sense of smell led her to clandestine computer operations involving fragrances, Navy intrigue, and Covid-19 fallout. Now, the narrative turns to her daughter, Ella, 17. Ella learns of the death of her long-estranged father and reconnects with that branch of the family tree, especially a half brother named Colton. Using deceit to escape Artima’s supervision, Ella ventures to California to meet Colton, and they become fast friends even though something about the boy strikes Ella as odd. In short order, Colton reveals that he is part of a project, via a shady agency called Recor, to enhance human intelligence and computer interfaces. Colton has a brain implant that effectively gives him encyclopedic data base knowledge and the proverbial photographic memory. Moreover, he demonstrates a talent for psychometry—touching an object, he mentally divines details of its history. Family relics and a neural link to a Recor handheld screen device (looking much like a smartphone) take Ella and Colton back to World War II and their ancestor Albert. He is a rising engineer, and, while no Hitler follower, he finds himself forced unwillingly to work in the Third Reich’s secret weapons factories. When he shows psychic abilities during the testing of a V2 rocket, a personal visit from Heinrich Himmler inducts Albert into the SS elite seeking to weaponize psi phenomena and the occult via microwaves. Albert is shocked that among the “subhuman” concentration-camp inmates used in cruel experiments is Simon Silverstein, a Jewish friend from his younger days. Back in the 21st century, revelations that Colton’s enhancements may have been extrapolated from Nazi research throws Ella’s newfound relatives into a more sinister light.
The YA-leaning tone does not simplify the SF narrative, but it clearly keeps the tale out of R-rated territory when it comes to delineating grisly Holocaust atrocities (the previous book, sort of a workplace suspense drama, expressed adult concerns, though also with taste and decorum). Here, the storytelling neatly incorporates fact-based information on German research at the pioneering missile base at Peenemünde, mystical secret societies, the “Lebensborn” Aryan-breeding compounds, and some dubious quasi-science “achievements” of the Soviet Union and the United States. Dustin fact-checks herself in an afterword, and it is indeed shudderworthy to discover how much of this yarn has roots in the truth. The chronological leaps into different timelines at uneven intervals give the story a slightly choppy effect, but the voice is still a strong and effective one. The author thankfully does not fall back on the YA paranormal cliché of a female lead trapped in a maddening romantic dilemma. Another installment featuring these intriguing characters is promised at the end.
An engaging, time-jumping sequel that skillfully brings Nazi supernatural secrets into SF territory.Pub Date: May 7, 2022
ISBN: 979-8800202540
Page Count: 460
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2022
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
© 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.
