by Harry Turtledove ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 18, 2017
Though there are a few historical missteps, readers who savor the patient accumulation of detail around each scenario will...
Wrapping up the author’s latest alternate-history trilogy (Fallout, 2016, etc.), in which he explores the question: what if Truman had used nuclear weapons in the Korean War?
Turtledove provides just enough detail to keep us apprised of the overall picture. By 1952, major cities in Europe, the USSR, China, and the U.S. lie in ruins. America and Germany are allies trying to repulse a Soviet attack, while Soviet satellites states rise up in rebellion. President Harry Truman, still in office after two Russian A-bombs wiped out Washington and the Pentagon and mourning the loss of his family, presides over a makeshift government in Philadelphia, dickering with Eisenhower to stay in power until elections can be organized while plotting to take out Stalin. For those who must continue to fight, or live with the consequences, the struggle for survival goes on. Those familiar with Turtledove’s distinctive approach know themes such as race, religion, politics, and the reality of interminable warfare will get a workout, while the story’s focus remains on ordinary characters and how they cope with their particular circumstances. Unreconstructed former Waffen-SS Capt. Rolf Mehlen fights with America against Soviet invaders. In Britain, USAF bomber pilot Bruce McNulty mourns the loss of his beloved and wrestles with guilt over his part in the killing of millions. In South Korea—yes, the war drags on; unleashing nuclear weapons made not a scrap of difference—Capt. Cade Curtis schemes to bring to America the young Korean soldier who saved his life. In California, appliance installer Aaron Finch tries to build a life in the aftermath of atomic bombing. Luisa Hozzel, a German hausfrau, wonders if she will survive the Siberian gulag.
Though there are a few historical missteps, readers who savor the patient accumulation of detail around each scenario will by now be thoroughly addicted.Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-39076-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
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by Ernest Cline ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 2011
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.
Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.
The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-88743-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
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SEEN & HEARD
by Pierce Brown ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 9, 2016
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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