Complex, conceptual speculative fiction that’s rendered with breathtaking ease.
In Tobal’s SF novel, a 20-something man discovers a technique for traveling between alternate universes—which, in the long run, could cause a cosmic apocalypse.
Bartender Sam Cattan and tattoo artist Una Malia Owens are a couple in New York City. One day, Sam accidentally discovers that, among Una’s collection of pagan god idols, there’s a particular effigy of a fertility deity that has the power to teleport them to alternate realities; in their case, the worlds seem based on the setting of whatever pornographic videos they’re watching. (Thankfully, the descriptions are not overly graphic.) This becomes the recreational foundation of their affair, but it ends badly when Sam cheats on Una in one of the X-rated universes. Tormented by loss, guilt, and desire, Sam starts questing through other settings, hoping to find one where he and Una didn’t break up; in the process, he learns more about universe-jumping and the surprisingly large number of people—including members of a shadowy government regulatory agency—who also know the trick. Although Sam seems like an ordinary guy driven by love, the ease with which he traverses the multiverse signifies that he's much, much more—and therefore unimaginably dangerous. Tobal’s narrative is a hell of a ride—and, indeed, Hell is one of the first places Sam visits. It’s a tale that’s ambitious on a scale that brings to mind the works of Olaf Stapledon, laying out a map of reality based on potentially infinite numbers of universes and choices—although in Sam’s case, whether he possesses free will in his cross-dimensional rampages is seriously in question. Ultimately, the novel delivers a lucid, credible, mechanistic explanation for its multiverse and its human wanderers. Genre readers may be reminded of Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic The Lathe of Heaven (1971), but this book is very much its own creature, combining science, philosophy, Lovecraft-ian horror, dark humor, romantic tragedy, and the origin of all creation. It’s a tall order, but Tobal keeps the plates spinning in multiple dimensions at once.
Complex, conceptual speculative fiction that’s rendered with breathtaking ease.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2022
ISBN: 9781958729526
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Mindstir Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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