A dense, rewarding sequel with a strong emotional core.
A mother protecting her newborn daughter is at the center of Clift’s expansive SF sequel.
The installment opens in 2102 Lagos, Nigeria, where protesters are targeting the Network for Indigenous Plants, Agriculture, and Horticulture complex. West Africa’s sole seed distributor, NIPAH, shrouded in secrecy, isn’t owned by locals, but by top government officials and powerful oligarchs. This opening storyline offers a glimpse into the book’s near-future world, which is dependent on the genetic modification of plants. In Iowa, Shiko Tanaka, born in a rotating space habitat and sent to Earth for his first job with GLOSCOM, an agricultural science company, soon learns his employer’s practices contribute to “environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and socioeconomic inequalities in access to nutritious food.” Shiko starts investigating GLOSCOM’s possibly nefarious interest in planet Earth, which leads him to Lagos and NIPAH. Meanwhile, far above Earth, the Tritans, a High Council of aliens on a spaceship whose home planet is dying, must revive their planet or move to another one. They send out probes for suitable new homelands and find Earth promising. After all, the blue planet’s levels of pollution mean it will soon be uninhabitable for humans, but the land is still productive despite its many barren patches. The Tritans might also steal seeds from the seed vault, whose bioengineered plants may help restore their ailing planet. Teagan Ward, the lead, doesn’t appear until later in novel, when she’s giving birth to her baby, Diana, in California. The genetic modifications Teagan underwent in lunar prison also prepared her body for Diana, “a species designed for survival beyond Earth” with “enhanced cognitive processing, superior cellular regeneration, and resistance to radiation and extreme conditions.” From there, the disparate story lines quickly converge as Clift ramps up the action, showcasing his deftness at building suspense: “The sound grew louder, like the steady hum of machinery, blending with the rustle of the grove’s leaves. It was almost hypnotic, yet unnerving.” If the story’s scope and large cast occasionally overwhelm readers, mesmerizing worldbuilding and Teagan’s likability keep it from spinning out of control.
A dense, rewarding sequel with a strong emotional core.Pub Date: June 19, 2025
ISBN: 9798990010758
Page Count: 374
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.
The fourth and final volume in the Terra Ignota series, a science fantasy set on a 25th-century Earth where people affiliate by philosophy and interest instead of geography.
For the first time in centuries, the world is seized by war—once the combatants actually figure out how to fight one. While rivalries among the Hives provide several motives for conflict, primary among them is whether J.E.D.D. Mason, the heir to various political powers and apparently a god from another universe in human form, should assume absolute rule over the world and transform it for the better. Gathering any large group to further the progress of the war or the possibility for peace is hampered by the loss of the world transit system of flying cars and the global communications network, both shut down by parties unknown, indicating a hidden and dangerous faction manipulating the situation for its own ends. As events play out, they bear a strong resemblance to aspects of the Iliad and the Odyssey, suggesting the persistent influence of Bridger, a deceased child who was also probably a god. Is tragedy inevitable, or can the characters defy their apparent fates? This often intriguing but decidedly peculiar chimera of a story seems to have been a philosophical experiment, but it’s difficult to determine just what was being tested. The worldbuilding—part science, part magic—doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny, and the political structure defies comprehension. The global government consists of an oligarchy of people deeply and intimately connected by love and hate on a scale which surpasses the royal dynasties of old, and it includes convicted felons among their number. Perhaps the characters are intended as an outsized satiric comment on the way politicians embrace expediency over morality or personal feelings, but these supposedly morally advanced potentates commit so many perverse atrocities against one another it is difficult to engage with them as people. At times, they seem nearly as alien as J.E.D.D. Mason.
Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7806-4
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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