A startling sci-fi examination of humanity’s capacity for cruelty in a remarkable dystopian setting.
Survivors of a ravaged future Earth must contend with murderous pirates and ruthless politics in Fields’ sci-fi debut.
Aron was on vacation when a devastating storm rendered Earth mostly uninhabitable. Now, 12 years later, the majority of people remaining have taken refuge in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. A reconnaissance ship from Mars arrives, and its crew says that they can transport a limited number of the survivors to the off-world colony. But the earthlings must decide who gets to go, and a committee formed for that purpose, the Council of Thirteen, makes devious choices. Fields’ post-apocalyptic novel, set well into the 22nd century, reveals a grim but lucid glimpse of the future, and genre fans will appreciate its descriptions of ultramodern technology such as data mats (computers that can be folded and stuffed into a pocket) and helojumpers (“flying, glass-bottomed boats”). But the author’s greatest achievement is his convincing portrayal of a futuristic world. Aron’s first-person narration doesn’t lay out Earth’s history but merely acknowledges events in passing, such as the gas crisis of 2021, and his metaphors are apposite, as when he describes being hit emotionally “with the impact of a helojumper slamming into the ocean.” Fields adds scenes and situations of increasing intensity as people inexplicably resign from the Council of Thirteen and the president, Ahmed, replaces them with his supporters; pirate raids become deadlier and more frequent; and an upsurge in sudden weather shifts brings snow mixed with rain during the day and blistering heat at night. The protagonist’s cynicism and apathy can sometimes border on nihilism, as when he questions whether life is any better on Mars, suggests that humankind’s extinction is imminent and impatiently awaits his own death. But such drastic attitudes make it all the more rewarding when he later becomes the protector of a friend’s 10-year-old son, William, and is determined to see that the boy prospers on the Mars colony.
A startling sci-fi examination of humanity’s capacity for cruelty in a remarkable dystopian setting.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2013
ISBN: 9780615896274
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Tuscan Fields Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
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
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
© 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.
