Radiant concepts, dialogue, and prose elevate this dystopian tale.
In this sequel, freedom fighters go on the offensive against their fascist enemies in a post-apocalyptic United States.
An asteroid named Jurbay destroyed the western United States in 2063. The Third, a military government, took over the remaining 28 states and proceeded to eliminate any opposition. The regime employed Genetically Engineering Beings and the process of “locasa,” which can remove memories and sever a person’s connection to home and family. Now, in 2088, Avery DeTornada and other members of The United 28 continue to resist The Third in a land ravaged by disease and environmental despoliation. Avery; her lover, McGinty; her half-GEB son, Chapman; and the mentally unstable neuroscientist Pasha (among others) operate from “an abandoned zoo northwest of the Waters of Erie.” After five years of running, Avery’s group strikes a deal with Degnan, who controls the Dark Market deep beneath the Waters of Erie. He helps The United 28 access The Third’s operations through the Warrior Strip, a secret course that parallels the Dark Market. He reveals that Commander Dorsey, leader of The Third, possesses the torpedo-like “fishborn” weapon (“with a fin on the back end”), which only needs power to launch directly at Avery’s settlement. She suspects Degnan can’t be trusted, but what of her own people? In this second installment of a trilogy, Mansfield (Roll Call, 2015, etc.) shifts her focus from the space-operatic threat of GEBs and other genre tropes to the complex emotions of loving someone you can’t fully understand. Though Chapman is only 5 years old, his odd behavior makes Avery wonder, “Am I raising a son or a weapon pointing at me?” This question isn’t posed lightly in a nation that leads the world in gun-related deaths. Later, the author’s optimism bleeds through when the test of a fishborn rattles her heroes. McGinty’s affection prompts Avery to say, “How can you kiss me right now?” He replies: “In a world like this, every moment must be the best moment.” Concepts like Pepper, an unfinished GEB who’s pregnant and unable to give birth, and a nightmarish cliffhanger prove Mansfield has boldness to spare.
Radiant concepts, dialogue, and prose elevate this dystopian tale.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5451-9299-3
Page Count: 452
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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