A welcome but less than satisfying reunion with beloved characters and their universe.
In the long-awaited sequel to Brain Plague (2000), Chrysoberyl of Valedon, an artist with a colony of sentient microorganisms in her brain, is again awash on a sea of troubles (sometimes literally).
Chrys and her micros, the creative strain known as the Libertines, are somewhat overcommitted these days. While they collectively work on Chrys’ controversial light paintings, they are also responsible for multiple large architectural projects, including an entire floating city on the ocean moon of Shora—if she can only manage to get approval for her design from multiple stakeholders. Chrys is also hoping to remodel the Underworld, the lower layers of her city of Iridis, inhabited by the poor and desperate. The nobles of Valedon would simply prefer to bury the Underworld and relocate its inhabitants, as so-called “cancerplasts” are rooting there, causing earthquakes that shake the city and threaten to undermine it permanently. Meanwhile, the masters—micros that seek to take over their host, not work with it—have mutated into Traders, capitalists that use financial incentives to encourage their hosts to succumb to their control and who are no longer as easy to detect. In order to flush them out, Chrys has incorporated microscopic quantum computing units within herself, which collectively threaten to achieve sentience in their own right, which many see as a threat. And this barely scratches the surface of all the intrigue connected to the continuing fight for nonhuman sentient rights and political shakeups on both Valedon and Shora. Slonczewski is fond of overloading her characters with difficulties, but this story seems to take that tendency to an extreme. There is almost no letup to the implausible amount of burdens and responsibilities that others pile upon Chrys; she is allowed very little time to enjoy her unique position as a successful artist and a wealthy woman with a fascinating creative collective in her brain. Perhaps it’s her micros that prevent Chrys from having a nervous breakdown, even as they add to her stress. Ultimately, these tensions build to a crisis point, but the resolution afterward is rife with dangling and even expanding plot threads, suggesting that the author has merely chosen a place to rest, not to conclude. Presumably we won’t have to wait another 25 years to find out?
A welcome but less than satisfying reunion with beloved characters and their universe.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781647101732
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Caezik SF & Fantasy
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.
Like a truck with no brakes speeding down a steep mountain road, Islington’s latest is an adrenaline-fueled SF thrill ride that follows a biomechanically enhanced assassin as he tries to understand his mysterious origins.
The chaotic opening scene gives readers a clear indication of what they’re in for: Contract killer Azure, attempting to complete a mission, is involved in a life-or-death battle with a multieyed biomachine called an Argos. “The thing’s bipedal but has six gorilla-like arms that end in half-metre-long claws,” he complains. After Azure barely dispatches the monster and kills his target, his AI assistant, Atti, informs him of his next job: protecting an elderly—and incredibly rich—woman living in a sprawling underground bunker in the middle of nowhere. “Old Woman,” as Azure calls her, isn’t forthcoming with personal details; all Azure can suss out is that she may be the target of a powerful organized crime syndicate—the same organization that employs him! Is Azure’s ultimate goal to save her or kill her? Although the worldbuilding could’ve been more comprehensive, Islington’s editing choices are brilliant—he strips away the insignificant narrative content to create a streamlined, action-packed adventure with seemingly one goal: to keep the reader furiously turning pages. The various mysteries—Azure’s murky beginnings, the tragic death of his best friend years earlier, Old Woman’s true identity, etc.—maintain the momentum and intensity. The takeaway here is the narrative potential of the characters as well as the plethora of subjects that could be explored more deeply, like immortality for the rich, cloning, and the potential to create bioengineered nightmares for “security.” Islington leaves the conclusion tantalizingly ambiguous. This novel could be the jumping-off point for a memorable series.
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781668239247
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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