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
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.
Jack Ryan Jr. and company race to stop a killer wave in this Tom Clancy thriller.
The ship Meridian Star departs eastern Russia unknowingly carrying a pair of containers with radioactive cesium chloride. The vessel is hijacked and scuttled in Micronesia near the Mariana Trench, and the crew is murdered. A huge insurance claim results, and Jack, an accomplished deep-sea diver who works for Hendley Associates, is there to investigate. The hostile Chinese learn it’s there and want that illicit cargo. Meanwhile, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center discovers a huge, mysterious object in 600 feet of water. At that depth, the pressure is unsurvivable without complex special equipment, which is vintage Tom Clancy. Whatever the strange object is, it’s “not a ship…not a submarine…not an aircraft.” On the side is a faded hammer and sickle and Cyrillic letters that spell Siren. Ryan teams up with Navy divers, and they look for a way to safely enter and explore the object. They discover that the underwater contraption has thermonuclear warheads attached, left and long forgotten by the USSR. If the warheads explode, they could still achieve their apparent purpose—to trigger a tsunami and destroy Guam, which is strategically important to the U.S. The Chinese know it too, and the race is on to take control. The result is plenty of high-stakes undersea action, where death can come from a bullet, a knife, or a sliced air hose. But there’s action on land, too. Navy master diver Carla Bennett and Jack take on a surprise assault in a hotel where Carla shows off stellar fighting skills—better than Jack’s. These two aren’t the only heroes here, as there’s a well-balanced cast of characters, all brave and likable. And of course—of course—where there’s a bomb, there’s a ticking clock.
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798217183166
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
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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