A deeply philosophical and thought-provoking story of humankind’s search for its destiny in the cosmos.
Blending elements of adventure SF with Chinese history and mythology, Hao follows a group of unlikely heroes as they attempt to avert two looming catastrophes: a war between adversarial superpowers and a botched first contact with benevolent aliens who could facilitate humankind’s next evolutionary step.
Set in 2080, the story begins when Jiang Liu, the rebellious youngest son of a politically powerful family and founder of the “world’s largest hacking collective,” is made aware of fluctuations in pulsar emission patterns near Earth. After attempting to meet with Yun Fan—an archeologist working in the Museum of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang—Jiang Liu finds that Qi Fei, the head of a top-secret Chinese military research institute, is also looking to meet with the reclusive Yun Fan in search of answers to the cosmic questions. Yun Fan informs the two men—who obviously don’t trust each other—that a massive alien ship is approaching Earth and that her mission is to enter the ship. With the world’s two warring factions, the Pacific League and the Atlantic Alliance, desperately seeking to possess the alien ship’s secrets, Yun Fan and company enter the ship first—and find, among wonders beyond their wildest imaginations, that almost everything they knew about human history has been incorrect. The integration of Chinese history and myth throughout the narrative—the Terracotta Army buried with the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; Confucianism; Daoism; fenghuang; qilin; and more—gives the narrative added depth. The themes explored, involving humankind’s violent and self-destructive tendencies, conclude with a glimmer of hope: “For all mankind to be one brotherhood is the grand dream of every great teacher in our history, and now we know it is also the article of faith of cosmic civilization.”
A deeply philosophical and thought-provoking story of humankind’s search for its destiny in the cosmos.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781534422117
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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