A clever fantasy featuring a protagonist guided by logic and his better angels.
In Hickman’s (The Years of Magic, 2011) comedy, a writer publishes a bestseller that agitates the devil himself.
Ted Granville works in the research department at a small-town newspaper. Unbeknownst to his colleagues, he’s written and published a nonfiction book called The Devil and the Id—an “assessment of the origins of evil in the human psyche.” In his comfy, suburban home, he eagerly reads a glowing review of his work in the morning paper, and he fantasizes about leaving his job, as his boss, Ed Murphy, treats him horribly. Then Ted remembers that he fibbed in his author bio, stating that he was an adjunct professor of psychology, instead of just a tutor, while attending college. Meanwhile, the wealthy Chester Ambrose peruses the same review, taking special note of a quote about the devil: “Such a being does not exist. Rather, it is only the...tortured thoughts of our most inner psyche, the Id.” Chester courts the fledgling author, offering him access to gorgeous women and celebrities in his club, The Other Side. Eventually, Chester and other diabolical beings hatch a plan to blackmail Ted into writing a second book—one that admits the devil is, in fact, real. However, a strange dog named Mac, who loves watching baseball, and a woman named Annette, whom Ted saves from a speeding car, will help him navigate various horrors orchestrated by Chester. In this novel, Hickman takes a wry look at fame and the glittering prizes that could cause someone to sell their soul. For the most part, though, the story maintains a light tone as it addresses such theological issues, only hinting at humanity’s darker impulses. That said, at one point the naïve Ted does explore The Other Side (alongside scantily clad escorts Mandi and Candi), which he soon finds to be a place of both pleasure and pain. Interestingly, the narrative often feels as if it’s set in a platonic ideal of 1960s America; for example, Ted’s co-worker Jessica is a “self-professed ‘groovy girl,’ who wore miniskirts, go-go boots, and the new perfume, Patchoulie.”
A clever fantasy featuring a protagonist guided by logic and his better angels.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 367
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2018
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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