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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
