A huge, churning, relentlessly entertaining melodrama buoyed by confidence that human values will prevail.
A rare, rattling space opera—first of a trilogy, or series, from Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck).
Humanity colonized the solar system out as far as Neptune but then exploration stagnated. Straight-arrow Jim Holden is XO of an ice-hauler swinging between the rings of Saturn and the mining stations of the Belt, the scattered ring of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. His ship's captain, responding to a distress beacon, orders Holden and a shuttle crew to investigate what proves to be a derelict. Holden realizes it's some sort of trap, but an immensely powerful, stealthed warship destroys the ice-hauler, leaving Holden and the shuttle crew the sole survivors. This unthinkable act swiftly brings Earth, with its huge swarms of ships, Mars with its less numerous but modern and powerful navy, and the essentially defenseless Belt to the brink of war. Meanwhile, on the asteroid Ceres, cynical, hard-drinking detective Miller—we don't find out he has other names until the last few pages—receives orders to track down and "rescue"—i.e. kidnap—a girl, Julie Mao, who rebelled against her rich Earth family and built an independent life for herself in the Belt. Julie is nowhere to be found but, as the fighting escalates, Miller discovers that Julie's father knew beforehand that hostilities would occur. Now obsessed, Miller continues to investigate even when he loses his job—and the trail leads towards Holden, the derelict, and what might prove to be a horrifying biological experiment. No great depth of character here, but the adherence to known physical laws—no spaceships zooming around like airplanes—makes the action all the more visceral. And where Corey really excels is in conveying the horror and stupidity of interplanetary war, the sheer vast emptiness of space and the amorality of huge corporations.
A huge, churning, relentlessly entertaining melodrama buoyed by confidence that human values will prevail.Pub Date: June 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-12908-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
In Goonan's medium-future world, space radiation prevents all broadcast communications, so communities are isolated. The wholesale application of nanotechnology, or ``nan,'' has led to dreadful wars, plagues, and a population crash. Young Verity, one of a small community of Shakers subsisting near deserted Dayton, Ohio, finds she has the ability to talk with the still extant, computerized Dayton library. She learns of the existence of the Queen City, Cincinnati, which is ``Enlivened,'' constructed and run by nan, governed by a hive mentality composed of huge genetically tailored Bees and Flowers that have become trapped in a hormonal feedback loop. After various adventures, and aided by her musician friend, Sphere, Verity enters Cincinnati and learns that she is only the latest of a series of clones programmed by one of the Enlivened city's vanished architects. Her function is to help the city out of its mindless, seasonal cycle of creation and destruction. So Verity must join the city's hormonal-informational network and become the queen Bee—a transformation that the city's mad creator is determined to prevent. Fuzzy, overlong, often poorly controlled, but flavorsome and wonderfully inventive, the centerpiece being Goonan's dazzling vision of new technology run riot. An exceptionally promising debut novel.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-85678-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
Steele picks the unlikely setting of an earthquake-devastated St. Louis, circa 2012, for his hardcover debut. As the city's residents struggle to rebuild their lives, operatives from the Emergency Relief Agency (ERA) conduct nocturnal raids against the homeless and swagger like Nazis. Gerry Rosen, the sophomoric narrator and a journalist for the Big Muddy Inquirer, has his suspicions of these ersatz storm troopers validated when a friend and coworker is murdered. The Tiptree Corporation, a local hi-tech outfit, seems implicated. While Rosen wallows in gratuitous self- pity and guilt over the death of his son and his impending divorce, his investigation reveals an unlikely conspiracy between Tiptree and the ERA to overthrow the federal government using a new laser satellite. Rescue comes in the amoeba-like form of Ruby Fulcrum, a Tiptree-designed computer virus/artificial intelligence that escapes into the national computer network and speaks to Rosen with his son's voice via pocket PC. Once the pair join forces, Fulcrum literally turns the laser against the ERA, democracy is protected, and Rosen has the biggest scoop of his career. But Rosen seems emotionally untouched by the experience: He does not come to terms with the loss of his son or wife. Not much to satisfy the reader here, just a puppy-dog characterization of artificial intelligence, detective novel repartee, and hopscotch leaps of plot.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-441-00097-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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