A fun but deeply flawed science-fiction reimagining of the 1955 Heinlein juvie classic Tunnel in the Sky.
Revisiting a popular science-fiction premise—colonists stranded on an unexplored planet—the latest from Howey is a survival story revolving around a group of young pioneers who are awakened from their amniotic vats to find their settlement in ruins and the majority of their fellow colonists dead.
For hundreds of years, Porter and the rest of his compatriots have traveled through space as blastocysts—fertilized eggs—en route to a distant world that scientists back on Earth presumed could be habitable. Once at their destination, the AI was supposed to evaluate the planet and deem it either viable or unviable. If viable, the AI would grow the 500 fertilized eggs in vats and educate each one with specific knowledge (in medicine, mechanics, agriculture, etc.) for 30 years before they would be birthed as adults. If unviable, the AI would simply destroy everything. Born 15 years too early, Porter (the colony’s psychologist) is awakened to screams as his home burns. After deeming the world viable, the AI has inexplicably begun the abort process. Barely escaping with his life—naked and clueless about the alien world he has stepped into—Porter and 58 other newly hatched humans must survive long enough to understand the AI’s brutal decisions. But as the teenagers attempt to build their new society, age-old human flaws threaten to destroy their chances of survival. Howey doesn’t offer up anything particularly original here: The worldbuilding is superficial at best and the storyline is formulaic and predictable. But the major issue is with the tone-deaf characterization. Porter, who has been genetically engineered to be gay, is described as feminine and weak. His sexuality—which has little to do with the main story—seems forced and unrealistic. Some readers may find the paper-thin reasoning behind the author’s decision to make the main character gay problematic at best.
A fun but deeply flawed science-fiction reimagining of the 1955 Heinlein juvie classic Tunnel in the Sky.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-358-21324-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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