A novel that presents a well-constructed take on a recognizable virtual-reality premise.
A curmudgeon finds himself inside the world’s first fully immersive video game in Martin’s debut SF series starter.
As a deadly virus decimates a future America, John Chambers takes refuge in virtual reality games. They’re so realistic and engaging that they allow him to forget the perpetual quarantine in which he lives. The day after John turns 40, he gets an unexpected offer from video game designer Lucas Dekker to beta-test a new total-immersion game that’s unlike anything that John’s ever seen: “You will feel like you are actually present inside a virtual world,” pitches Lucas. “It is not hyperbole when I say that it will feel like you really are right there.” John just has to agree to participate in the game’s teamwork component, which the misanthropic protagonist does only reluctantly. In the game, he’s reborn as “Blaze,” a 22-year-old, fanny pack–wearing street tough in a retro, arcade-style fighting game. The setting is the city of New Arcadia, an East Coast metropolis in decline, where a gang called the Spankers are pushing a dangerous new narcotic called Drug X. At first, John is having the time of his life, running around the urban environment, picking fights with baddies, and defeating them with his fantastic fighting skills. Then he meets Jessica, another player, who’s even less interested in cooperation than he is. But when his new acquaintance gets into real trouble that spills over into the real world, John will have to learn to be a team player in order to save her—if the world of New Arcadia doesn’t come crashing down around him first.
Martin’s prose, which is mostly in the voice of John, is fluid, sarcastic, and full of cinematic allusions, as when John says to Lucas, “So you Last Starfighter-ed me?...Movie released in 1984? Directed by Nick Castle, the guy who played Michael Myers in the original Halloween?” Indeed, many readers will notice that the novel feels quite a bit like Ernest Cline’s popular 2011 SF novel Ready Player One, which was itself made into a movie—although the references in this new novel tend to be more centered on the 1990s than the ’80s. (There are still plenty of references to the ’80s, as well, though.) John himself is also a familiar character type, but Martin’s disinclination to make him very likable perversely ends up making him easier for readers to root for. Over the course of the story, the author successfully ratchets up the real-world stakes, which intrude upon the game; in fact, the most compelling sections are those that take place in the desert hellscape in which John actually lives and which include timely references to a pandemic. On the other hand, some readers may struggle with how much of the book is given over to descriptions of simulated fistfights, which start to wear thin. Those who fully get onboard with the video game concept, however, will enjoy this offering.
A novel that presents a well-constructed take on a recognizable virtual-reality premise.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-84612-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Sound Off Productions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 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
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
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