Not much for sci-fi enthusiasts to gnaw on, but gravy for inquiring Bible readers.
Bonner spins out a biblically fueled, apocalyptic, intergalactic cautionary tale.
Into the sleepy little burg of Onyx, Miss., come five strange strangers. Strange because two among them have orange skin with raccoon bands across their eyes, and the lone woman is green. They claim to be interstellar travelers, on Earth to make new friends. But the clever Rev. Jimmie Jordan has seen them before in the Bible. Indeed, two of them are descendants of Cain, come to warn Earthlings of the looming threat of the Froecutters, vengeance-seeking extraterrestrials persecuted by Adam (of Adam and Eve) before he was cast down to Earth for intergalactic transgressions. There follows a fairly intriguing, if somewhat dry and stilted (“It’ll be hard to be friends to the people who treat their friends the way you treated us,” complains one extraterrestrial) sci-fi story in which the United States becomes a deep-space powerhouse, unfortunately bringing its bullying ways along with it, thus spelling its doom, twined with an analysis of events as seen through a selective reading of biblical passages by Rev. Jordan. The reverend’s detailed interpretations are where Bonner most clearly enjoys himself; the bad boys locked in sidereal warfare are often merely straw dogs. Skeptics who enjoy studying the Bible, its lacunae and contradictions, will enjoy Bonner’s constructing a reading of the Godhead mystery, explaining the true faults of Sodom, revealing the Earth as Hell (“The Moon is the headstone therefore the Earth is the grave and the dead are those to be saved”). The Lazarus parable, wherein Satan lures man out of the tomb before his time played against the Earthlings bumbling cosmic peregrinations, has far less oomph than the simple parable of Hell on Earth, where love and peace fall before greed and power-mongering. Bonner’s writing has more ease and jump when rummaging through the Bible: John the Baptist “received limited press in each of the gospels.” The ending, though, in which Judgment Day is left hanging, is unsatisfying.
Not much for sci-fi enthusiasts to gnaw on, but gravy for inquiring Bible readers.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-45234-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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