In Daniels’ (Fire Chief, 2011) futuristic novel, a firefighter in Colorado’s Front Range copes with various technological advances that render his profession obsolete.
In the not-so-distant future, Johnny Stasso becomes a firefighter after an early traumatic experience and a failed attempt at finishing college. The profession suits Johnny well, as he has a passion for saving lives and keeping people safe. But as he raises a family with his wife, Nina, in Boulder, Colorado, he finds that staying a firefighter isn’t so easy. Well-intentioned technology companies develop firefighting equipment that, as the years roll by, becomes more advanced and renders Johnny’s job more administrative than active. It’s a wonderful premise, and Daniels’ greatest strength is portraying the technologies, which don’t seem terribly far-fetched: gear that monitors the firefighters’ vitals, robots that haul gear for battling wildfires, and so on. He’s at his best when the technologies reflect those of the present day; for example, when firefighters arrive at a university, it’s hard not to envision cell phones when Daniels describes the scene: “Distracted students wearing their virtual reality goggles were everywhere, and several took missteps in front of our trucks before their friends or alarms from the goggles caused them to stop and look up, surprised at our presence.” But although there’s a lot of fun in seeing what new technologies will come next, the story’s protagonist lacks complexity. Johnny is a likable but unreflective character, aside from a jarring scene in which he plans to murder someone in a jealous rage. Too often the story plods forward with repeated, undistinguished episodes of firefighting. If Daniels had allowed Johnny to be more involved in the decisions surrounding the various technologies, it might have made his character more interesting; usually, however, Johnny’s a passive victim. The fact that Nina works for one of the tech companies is glossed over for much of the book, only to be brought up at the novel’s conclusion in an unsurprising way.
An often entertaining, thought-provoking exploration of how technology may replace humanity, but relatively light on plot and characterization.
Pub Date: May 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494907273
Page Count: 258
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.
When a freak dust storm brings a manned mission to Mars to an unexpected close, an astronaut who is left behind fights to stay alive. This is the first novel from software engineer Weir.
One minute, astronaut Mark Watney was with his crew, struggling to make it out of a deadly Martian dust storm and back to the ship, currently in orbit over Mars. The next minute, he was gone, blown away, with an antenna sticking out of his side. The crew knew he'd lost pressure in his suit, and they'd seen his biosigns go flat. In grave danger themselves, they made an agonizing but logical decision: Figuring Mark was dead, they took off and headed back to Earth. As it happens, though, due to a bizarre chain of events, Mark is very much alive. He wakes up some time later to find himself stranded on Mars with a limited supply of food and no way to communicate with Earth or his fellow astronauts. Luckily, Mark is a botanist as well as an astronaut. So, armed with a few potatoes, he becomes Mars' first ever farmer. From there, Mark must overcome a series of increasingly tricky mental, physical and technical challenges just to stay alive, until finally, he realizes there is just a glimmer of hope that he may actually be rescued. Weir displays a virtuosic ability to write about highly technical situations without leaving readers far behind. The result is a story that is as plausible as it is compelling. The author imbues Mark with a sharp sense of humor, which cuts the tension, sometimes a little too much—some readers may be laughing when they should be on the edges of their seats. As for Mark’s verbal style, the modern dialogue at times undermines the futuristic setting. In fact, people in the book seem not only to talk the way we do now, they also use the same technology (cellphones, computers with keyboards). This makes the story feel like it's set in an alternate present, where the only difference is that humans are sending manned flights to Mars. Still, the author’s ingenuity in finding new scrapes to put Mark in, not to mention the ingenuity in finding ways out of said scrapes, is impressive.
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-3902-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
© Copyright 2025 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.
