A violent alien occupation/prison break novel that feels more retro than futurist.
After an alien invasion, a resistance fighter makes an uneasy secret alliance with one of the creatures prior to becoming a prize prisoner in Chambers’ debut YA SF novel.
In the future, humankind is laid low by climate change, with cities becoming walled fortresses against floods and resources and infrastructure depleted. Sinister aliens called the Fringeants are undertaking a stealthy takeover of Earth, occupying major population centers and killing many residents. Fringeants look mostly human except for their glowing eyes and mouths, and their weapons tend to be whips, fists, and bows and arrows. They also use totemic magic involving the use of doll-like “poppets.” Somewhere in Canada, Feng is an underground fighter/saboteur/medic who fled pursuit by Fringeants as a teen three years ago. When Feng takes shelter in a Fringeant-held house, he accidentally makes his first close contact with one of the creatures. Diem is a sort of healer among the invaders and an expert wielder of poppets; she repeats the official line that Fringeants have a moral imperative to conquer the ecologically abused planet and force barbaric human beings into following the Fringeants’ universal religion and become enlightened. After Feng is captured and suffers brutally under torture, Diem reconsiders her peoples’ agenda and ethics. Chambers’ debut is not the satire its title seems to portend; instead, the graphic material in this work brings to mind the splatterpunk aesthetic. Descriptions of physical harm abound in these pages, and the fact that the Fringeants are resolutely low-tech for a galaxy-traveling race—their POW compound lacks even rudimentary surveillance—puts the material in league with brutal war stories of yore. However, quite young adults largely comprise the ensemble here instead of adults; the author herself was in her teens when the yarn was written.Readers may appreciate the many twists and betrayals in the close-quarter setting of a disused school that serves as a Fringeant base. An open ending indicates troop transports of sequels are on their way, and a preview of a prequel is included.
A violent alien occupation/prison break novel that feels more retro than futurist.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-9990214-6-7
Page Count: 431
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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