by Hannu Rajaniemi ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 26, 2018
A jaw-dropping, knowing, hyperintelligent yarn that, like the author's previous outings, would have benefitted from fewer...
Following a dazzling science-fiction trilogy, Rajaniemi (Invisible Planets, 2017, etc.) offers a sort of neo-steampunk spy story wherein the afterlife is real.
Discovered by Victorian scientist-spiritualists—who else?—Summerland, a city of the dead, was built by a now-vanished alien race. To get there when you die you need only visualize a kind of four-dimensional hieroglyph called a Ticket. Occupied exclusively by the British (but why?), Summerland has a fully functioning infrastructure and economy (but why would dead people need this?), and its inhabitants can talk to the still-living via ectophone or visit the mundane by renting the body of a medium. On Earth, it’s 1938, and the Spanish Civil War threatens to explode, with Britain supporting the Fascists, while the Soviet Union (run with uncanny precision by a vast collective intellect whose kernel is the departed V.I. Lenin augmented by millions of dead souls) assists the Communists in a conflict fought with aetherguns and ectotanks. (Take a deep breath. Exhale.) British Secret Intelligence Service operative Rachel White learns the identity of a Soviet mole. Unfortunately, Peter Bloom is not only dead, but he works for the SIS’s Summerland branch. Worse, when Rachel reports the discovery, she’s ridiculed and reassigned to menial work—Bloom, you see, has close family connections to Prime Minister Herbert Blanco West (closely modeled on H.G. Wells, with what seems to be an admixture of David Lloyd George), so nobody’s willing to risk career and afterlife to investigate. Rajaniemi’s name-dropping yarn bulges with both real-world and imaginary spies and SIS agents, politicians, and scientists, but the impressive and apposite details—there are ecto-equivalents of most computer functions—often seem designed to obscure intractable flaws in the framework. Neither are the characters easy to take a shine to when the dead ones have more substance and simpatico than the living.
A jaw-dropping, knowing, hyperintelligent yarn that, like the author's previous outings, would have benefitted from fewer smarts and more warmth.Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-17892-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Share your opinion of this book
More by Hannu Rajaniemi
BOOK REVIEW
edited by Hannu Rajaniemi & Jacob Weisman
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
140
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Max Brooks
BOOK REVIEW
by Max Brooks
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2015
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.
Second part of an alien-contact trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, 2014) from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In the previous book, the inhabitants of Trisolaris, a planet with three suns, discovered that their planet was doomed and that Earth offered a suitable refuge. So, determined to capture Earth and exterminate humanity, the Trisolarans embarked on a 400-year-long interstellar voyage and also sent sophons (enormously sophisticated computers constructed inside the curled-up dimensions of fundamental particles) to spy on humanity and impose an unbreakable block on scientific advance. On Earth, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization formed to help the invaders, despite knowing the inevitable outcome. Humanity’s lone advantage is that Trisolarans are incapable of lying or dissimulation and so cannot understand deceit or subterfuge. This time, with the Trisolarans a few years into their voyage, physicist Ye Wenjie (whose reminiscences drove much of the action in the last book) visits astronomer-turned-sociologist Luo Ji, urging him to develop her ideas on cosmic sociology. The Planetary Defense Council, meanwhile, in order to combat the powerful escapist movement (they want to build starships and flee so that at least some humans will survive), announces the Wallfacer Project. Four selected individuals will be accorded the power to command any resource in order to develop plans to defend Earth, while the details will remain hidden in the thoughts of each Wallfacer, where even the sophons can't reach. To combat this, the ETO creates Wallbreakers, dedicated to deducing and thwarting the plans of the Wallfacers. The chosen Wallfacers are soldier Frederick Tyler, diplomat Manuel Rey Diaz, neuroscientist Bill Hines, and—Luo Ji. Luo has no idea why he was chosen, but, nonetheless, the Trisolarans seem determined to kill him. The plot’s development centers on Liu’s dark and rather gloomy but highly persuasive philosophy, with dazzling ideas and an unsettling, nonlinear, almost nonnarrative structure that demands patience but offers huge rewards.
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7708-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
More by Cixin Liu
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen
BOOK REVIEW
by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.