Near-future science fiction thriller from the authors of Mirage (1996). “Mimes” are artificial humans whose sex chromosomes have been replaced by the Goleman chromosome: Using a template disk, they can “flux” into any body shape. Slaves of the predatory corporate-city “gloms,” mimes live only to gain Selfhood, freedom, and a permanent body form. Mime Tristan’s last mission for his handler, Cyrill of Kaze Glom, is to steal a McGuffin from the heavily defended Citadel of deadly rival Flagge Glom. To gain entry to the Citadel, Tristan must take the body shape of Flagge “datameister” Lani Rouge using Kaze’s newly invented writable template. Before he steals her appearance, however, Lani recognizes Tristan’s current template: It’s Trev, Lani’s now-dead ex-lover, a bioengineer deeply involved in a secret free-the-mimes resistance group. Tristan, meanwhile, duplicates Lani, steals what be needs, and escapes into the freezone, where he meets Okasan, the legendary leader of Trev’s group. Okasan says that mimes remain slaves of the gloms forever, but Tristan doesn’t believe her—until, having reported to Cyrill, he learns that Flagge allowed him to escape after contaminating him with a deadly virus that swiftly wipes out all of Kaze’s other mimes. Worse, Flagge then grabs Lani and Okasan’she’s really Teresa Coleman!’so Tristan must make some decisions about who to trust before he embarks on a rescue mission. Impressive visual effects, B-movie plot, and villains that stay mostly off-stage: an unconvincing yarn, with its glowing, vacuous gaze fixed on Hollywood. (Movie rights to Polygram Pictures)
Pub Date: April 30, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-51977-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
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 new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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