A heady technothriller that reads like the lovechild of Cory Doctorow and Tom Clancy.
Rosone’s near-future technothriller spins a cautionary tale about the integration of artificial intelligence into modern warfare.
The year is 2032. China, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have formed the Eurasian Defense and Economic Pact. North Korea has free access to Chinese ports and Russian energy. Taiwan has recently become a province of China. When the EDEP announces large-scale military and naval exercises in the South China Sea, the North Pacific, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe all at once, the world is suddenly paying very close attention. Coincidentally, Beijing also announces the establishment of the Maritime Sovereignty Protection Zone after claiming that Taiwanese authorities have failed to control the flow of an illicit drug known as Vortex; as of April 15th, all vessels entering Chinese ports, explicitly those bound for Taiwan, will be subject to rigorous customs inspections. Those vessels exhibiting resistance, hostile intent, or failing to comply will be boarded by patrolling naval units. It’s a classic pretext for provocation, and now the writing is firmly on the wall: If Taiwan falls, the rest of the world will fall along with it. In response, the United States creates the well-funded and well-equipped Taiwan Study Group to secretly support Taiwan’s independence, offering Taiwan carte blanche access to the best unmanned, autonomous weapons systems money can buy. As the author deftly builds the tension between the world’s most powerful countries, the end result will ultimately be decided by whoever commands the digital and physical battlespace. Rosone’s experience in the military is evident in the dizzying array of acronyms and jargon that graces the pages—while adding authenticity to the story, this also is distracting to the reader at times (as when the author describes “a backpack-mounted omni-antenna disguised as a folded bird blind frame—used to passively scan for encrypted VHF comms from new SHORAD nodes”). His narrative turns the traditional novel on its head; instead of a traditional cast of characters, technology plays the central character here, with countries serving as secondary characters. And it works.
A heady technothriller that reads like the lovechild of Cory Doctorow and Tom Clancy.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781967436262
Page Count: 355
Publisher: Front Line Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Fast-moving fun from start to finish.
A hijacked laser weapon threatens to ignite World War III.
The U.S. is testing the EAGL, or Enhanced Aerial Gunnery Laser, an airborne defense system that annihilates anything it hits. It’s so fast it “can shoot down a hundred ballistic missiles before they leave enemy territory,” it never runs out of ammunition, and it will “make ballistic missiles obsolete.” But a traitor named Ridley Wiles hijacks the plane that carries it, and he kills the crew. Radar contact is lost, and National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) salvage experts Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala undertake an urgent mission to find or destroy the EAGL before Russia or China lay their hands on it. Meanwhile, a smuggler named Ahab who specializes in dumping toxic waste is dying. He blames Kurt and Gushan, an officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and would like nothing better than to cause World War III before he dies. The action and excitement are damn near constant. The U.S. and China have begun joint operations on certain projects, and Kurt and Joe save Gushan’s life—barely—in the prologue. But Gushan’s superiors may later order him to hunt Americans down and kill them. He knows he owes his saviors a debt, but he is also loyal to his country and to the PLA, so he has a dilemma. The heroes are all that NUMA series readers have come to expect—smart, honorable, and resourceful under life-and-death pressure. They face attacks on the NUMA vessel Lyra, try to save a sinking ship, commandeer a cargo plane—Joe can fly it, but isn’t so sure about landing it—and hope Ahab doesn’t blow it out of the sky. As always in this series, the story is a high-stakes, brace-yourself adventure with admirable heroes who don’t shy away from the next challenge.
Fast-moving fun from start to finish.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798217184972
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
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