Next book

Strangers in Our Midst

This sci-fi debut connects a series of historical mysteries to a pair of rival alien cultures.
Ti and Si are members of the spacefaring LeMu, a race that possesses superior technology and genetic knowledge, though the confines of space travel have bred emotion out of them. The elders have tasked Ti and Si with studying the humans of Earth, whom they call the Guiyari. The goal is to eventually perform a cultural exchange with the Guiyari and regain the capacity for emotion and creativity—while avoiding man’s tendency toward violence. Ti is perfectly suited to this study since he’s a mutant born with the ability to feel “strong emotions.” Si, meanwhile, is a half-breed Guiyari, so Ti must be on the lookout for her potential for emotion as he watches the earthlings. On Earth, the two must also watch out for the presence of the SaMu, other beings who have lost the full use of their bodies and seek to enslave mankind. Ti and Si begin their mission by placing a young man named Kaspar Hauser in 1828 Nuremberg, Germany. This experiment will test how humanity deals with a stranger who doesn’t communicate well and is completely dependent on their kindness. Debut author Galbraith’s clever conceit is that his sci-fi framework can explain the real-life mystery of Kaspar Hauser, a man who lived during the 19th century. Galbraith presents further mysteries, most of them involving missing ships and crew, on a timeline leading into the 20th century. Sometimes, his commitment to detail helps enliven what is essentially a casebook; Kaspar, for example, “had been imprisoned in a small cell only seven feet long, four feet wide and five feet high. No sunlight ever entered.” Many details, however—like Lord Charles Stanhope’s passion for collecting snuffboxes—feel extraneous. At the end of each mystery, readers get analysis from Ti and Si, but these scenes rarely compensate for the repetitive excursions into history that precede them. More dialogue and less exposition might have given this great idea a richer story.

A fascinating concept with too dry a delivery.

Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2013

ISBN: 978-1491078884

Page Count: 204

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 17, 2014

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 138


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • New York Times Bestseller

Next book

DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 138


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • New York Times Bestseller

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

Next book

THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM

From the Remembrance of Earth's Past series , Vol. 1

Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.

Strange and fascinating alien-contact yarn, the first of a trilogy from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.

In 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, young physicist Ye Wenjie helplessly watches as fanatical Red Guards beat her father to death. She ends up in a remote re-education (i.e. forced labor) camp not far from an imposing, top secret military installation called Red Coast Base. Eventually, Ye comes to work at Red Coast as a lowly technician, but what really goes on there? Weapons research, certainly, but is it also listening for signals from space—maybe even signaling in return? Another thread picks up the story 40 years later, when nanomaterials researcher Wang Miao and thuggish but perceptive policeman Shi Qiang, summoned by a top-secret international (!) military commission, learn of a war so secret and mysterious that the military officers will give no details. Of more immediate concern is a series of inexplicable deaths, all prominent scientists, including the suicide of Yang Dong, the physicist daughter of Ye Wenjie; the scientists were involved with the shadowy group Frontiers of Science. Wang agrees to join the group and investigate and soon must confront events that seem to defy the laws of physics. He also logs on to a highly sophisticated virtual reality game called “Three Body,” set on a planet whose unpredictable and often deadly environment alternates between Stable times and Chaotic times. And he meets Ye Wenjie, rehabilitated and now a retired professor. Ye begins to tell Wang what happened more than 40 years ago. Jaw-dropping revelations build to a stunning conclusion. In concept and development, it resembles top-notch Arthur C. Clarke or Larry Niven but with a perspective—plots, mysteries, conspiracies, murders, revelations and all—embedded in a culture and politic dramatically unfamiliar to most readers in the West, conveniently illuminated with footnotes courtesy of translator Liu.

Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.

Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-7653-7706-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014

Categories:
Close Quickview