An offbeat meditation on relationships, replete with quirky characters and a poignant romance at the center of the action.
Tales of love, loss, and regret unfold around a futuristic dinosaur park in this novel.
In 2116, the effects of climate change have drastically altered the planet and advances in technology have led to the development of a remarkable—and extremely popular—theme park. Cretaceous World, located in Dewberry, Oregon, connects visitors with the distant past through genetically engineered dinosaurs living in full-scale reconstructions of their habitats. The sprawling park’s director, Ted Beebe, a microbiologist, and his wife, Becky, a professor of botany, have dedicated their lives to Cretaceous World. At 68, he is satisfied with his marriage and career; however, he finds that he now laments that he and Becky never had children. His blissful life is shattered when she is diagnosed with a virus that causes dementia and later killed by a drunk driver. Bereft, he tries to move on with his life and finds himself attracted to paleontologist Lana Gable. Love is also on the minds of park employees and residents of Dewberry. Sheriff Bob Holmes is concerned that his deputy, Jimmy Watson, is taking his girlfriend for granted. Mystery author Althea Morgan comes to Dewberry seeking information about a murder victim, a Russian tourist, and the relationship that may have led to her death. Ted’s association with Lana leads to new beginnings, but his enduring love for Becky tempers his happiness. The latest from Robertson (The Bricolage of Kotegaeshi, 2007, etc.) uses the wonders of the dinosaur park as a backdrop to explore the idiosyncrasies of love, grief, and newfound connections. The descriptions of Cretaceous World and its formidable inhabitants are vivid and realistic and Robertson displays a wry sense of humor and a panoply of intriguing characters. Most of the action takes place in the theme park and Robertson draws several thought-provoking parallels between the dinosaurs and their human caretakers, especially in the area of reproduction. The genetic tinkering has rendered the reptiles sterile. As Ted explains: “We can’t handle a population increase in our dinosaurs. When one of them dies, we just make a new one.” Ted and Becky remained childless by choice, preferring to focus instead on their careers and the development of the park. Ted was initially content with their decision; however, after 35 years of marriage, he finds himself wishing he had become a father. The tension between childlessness, by choice or design, and the desire for a family is a central theme connecting several primary and secondary characters in the tale. Robertson’s playful and keen sense of humor is another highlight, particularly the teasing banter between Lana and Ted and a popular local restaurant whimsically named Hominid’s Delight. But the book is relatively short and some promising subplots are limited to a few episodes. Althea’s investigation into the Russian tourist’s death yields a tantalizing murder mystery, but it is dropped as quickly as it is introduced.
An offbeat meditation on relationships, replete with quirky characters and a poignant romance at the center of the action.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68114-333-0
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Anaphora Literary Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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