British import from 1988: slowly disintegrating giant airships battle for supremacy above an Earth blighted and overrun by genetic engineering run riot. The tiny feminist utopia of Minerva, sorely beset by monsters and infections from the surrounding blight, must pay tribute to the threatening mile-long airship Lord Pangloth. But the Minervans, near starving and desperate, resolve instead to attack the airship rather than submit. Afterwards, Minerva lies in ruins, and warrior Jan is winched aboard the airship and into slavery. There, she is propositioned by Milo, an unlikable but intriguing character who dominates his fellow-slaves. Soon, Lord Pangloth is attacked by a rival airship and swiftly defeated. The Japanese warlord of the newcomer turns out to be an acquaintance of Milo'sboth, as it turns out, are immortal and possess various enhanced metabolic functions. From the airship's computers Milo learns of the existence of a brand new airship, and forces Jan to help him escape with the information. Finally, treacherous Milo dies in a grotesque comeuppance, Jan discovers a holographic, computerized companion, and seizes the new airship for herself. Inconsistent in places and without any great depth of moment, but well told and with enough ideas, plot, and pace to hold the interest of indulgent readers.
Pub Date: May 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-05964-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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