by Jean-Christophe Valtat ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2013
A sui generis contraption, rhapsodic and strange; a breathless adventure for bent intellectuals.
The second mind-bending installment of The Mysteries of New Venice.
Valtat’s (Aurorarama, 2010, etc.) second entry in his series beggars description; it can loosely be classified as steampunk due to its Victorian-era setting and fascination with fanciful technology, but its literary ambition, dazzling stylistic panache and richly drawn characters elevate it beyond the bounds of genre fiction. The action concerns the efforts of Brentford Orsini, former regent of the polar utopia New Venice, his louche confidant Gabriel d’Allier and a small band of colorful associates who return to their beloved home after a mysterious diplomatic mission goes awry and strands the group in 1895 Paris, dislocated in time, years before the founding of their mysterious city. Paris proves most inhospitable, ravaged by apocalyptic winter weather and beset by political unrest, scheming occultists and dangerous gangs of killers attired alternately as ravens and wolves. Valtat complicates the story deliciously, limning (in prose that is by turns lyrical, arch and earthily witty) a complex society built on secret alliances and technological marvels that give the characters endless opportunities to discourse on art, science and mysticism while engaging in all manner of classic adventure-story intrigue and action. Characters who include a dyspeptic disembodied head, a willful Eskimo mechanic, a half-mechanical ex-military man, and a guillotine-toting, wheelchair-bound refuse baron are the order of the day, but Valtat’s intellectual excitement and clear affection for his creations prevent the proceedings from ever devolving into merely clever conceits or sci-fi silliness. The novel demands close attention and real work from the reader; there is an elusive quality to Valtat’s worldbuilding, a sense of much left unexplained just beneath the surface of his beguiling tale. The luminous chaos of the title refers to the amorphous bodies of light that can sometimes be perceived when one’s eyes are shut tightly, suggestions of shapes that, with some imagination and concentration, can be forced to cohere into recognizable objects. Not a bad metaphor for the experience of entering Valtat’s allusive, evanescent world.
A sui generis contraption, rhapsodic and strange; a breathless adventure for bent intellectuals.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61219-141-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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by Jean-Christophe Valtat translated by Mitzi Angle
by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by Max Brooks
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Cixin Liu ; translated by Ken Liu ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 11, 2014
Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.
Strange and fascinating alien-contact yarn, the first of a trilogy from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, young physicist Ye Wenjie helplessly watches as fanatical Red Guards beat her father to death. She ends up in a remote re-education (i.e. forced labor) camp not far from an imposing, top secret military installation called Red Coast Base. Eventually, Ye comes to work at Red Coast as a lowly technician, but what really goes on there? Weapons research, certainly, but is it also listening for signals from space—maybe even signaling in return? Another thread picks up the story 40 years later, when nanomaterials researcher Wang Miao and thuggish but perceptive policeman Shi Qiang, summoned by a top-secret international (!) military commission, learn of a war so secret and mysterious that the military officers will give no details. Of more immediate concern is a series of inexplicable deaths, all prominent scientists, including the suicide of Yang Dong, the physicist daughter of Ye Wenjie; the scientists were involved with the shadowy group Frontiers of Science. Wang agrees to join the group and investigate and soon must confront events that seem to defy the laws of physics. He also logs on to a highly sophisticated virtual reality game called “Three Body,” set on a planet whose unpredictable and often deadly environment alternates between Stable times and Chaotic times. And he meets Ye Wenjie, rehabilitated and now a retired professor. Ye begins to tell Wang what happened more than 40 years ago. Jaw-dropping revelations build to a stunning conclusion. In concept and development, it resembles top-notch Arthur C. Clarke or Larry Niven but with a perspective—plots, mysteries, conspiracies, murders, revelations and all—embedded in a culture and politic dramatically unfamiliar to most readers in the West, conveniently illuminated with footnotes courtesy of translator Liu.
Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7706-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen
BOOK REVIEW
by Cixin Liu ; translated by Joel Martinsen
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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