Engaging food for thought.
A trilogy which began as an almost-dry intellectual exercise ends as a glorious kitchen sink of genre, combining philosophy, time travel, aliens, and the gods.
At the conclusion of Volume 2, The Philosopher Kings (2015), Zeus moved Athene’s civilization modeled after Plato’s Republic from ancient Greece to a distant planet in the 26th century (named Plato, of course). Forty years later, the next generation has established itself on Plato, joined by self-aware robots known as Workers and the alien Saeli. Now, a human spaceship prepares to land on Plato for the first time. And Pytheas, the god Apollo in human form, finally dies; but once returned to his divine form, the deity discovers that his sister Athene is missing from all time and space. It sounds like a lot of plot, but mostly it’s an excuse to explore whether or not Athene’s experiment is still working, discuss the nature of the soul, and engage in character development, both with old friends from the previous two books and new ones introduced here. Along the way, some mysteries are resolved and loose ends tied up. Ultimately, the endeavor proves to be surprisingly involving. The only real downside is that the first contact between the two human civilizations, which is initially touted as a major event, is mostly teased, not developed. Although some potential aspects are discussed, the reader never gets to truly witness the culture clash and eventual reconciliation between the essentially communist, cerebral, but culturally restrictive ideals of Plato versus the rampantly capitalist and presumably more pleasure-seeking “space humans,” who don’t even realize that their Workers are sentient. But perhaps both Walton and her characters refuse to spoon-feed the reader and wish us to do our own work of considering the implications.
Engaging food for thought.Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7902-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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