A readable and elaborate, if somewhat didactic, novel about a man finding his true destiny on a faraway planet.
A complex SF yarn about death and regeneration.
At the beginning of Stadtmiller’s novel, Hurricane Logan is heading toward a bar called Rosalie’s and its environs, prompting talk of evacuation. The potential weather emergency is the furthest thing from young teacher and part-time bartender Darren Abington’s mind at the moment, though, as he’s worried about whether his wife Mary’s cancer is in full remission and, if it is, whether they want to try to have a baby together. So at first, he doesn’t pay much attention to the high-spirited group of storm chasers at his bar—until later, when it increasingly seems as if they’re drawn to him personally. But as the storm blows and night falls, the plot takes a hard turn: Darren wakes up on another world. The planet is Pryeana, a rocky world that’s far, far from Earth and has, for mysterious reasons, been the destination of humans for many years—specifically, redheaded humans who’ve recently died on Earth. The natives of Pryeana refer to these additions as “Alfreds”; they only comprise a small fraction of Pryeana’s 2 billion people, but their appearance has sparked a planetary interest in biological regeneration technology. The offspring of Alfreds and regenerated people are called Surge Omegas, a rising power demographic on Pryeana. Darren learns all of this with a certain amount of impatience since he’s mainly concerned with his wife and whether she’s on this new world. From this sudden and unpromisingly expositional shift, Stadtmiller steadily develops an intriguing world—and its long connection with Darren and his family. Too much of this elaboration is simply told to Darren (and the reader) at the expense of more edge-of-your-seat drama, but the worldbuilding in these pages is satisfyingly detailed. Darren himself remains a frustratingly one-note character throughout; the story, too, has a certain stiffness that’s characteristic of allegories. Fortunately, however, Pryeana gradually comes to feel like a very real place, and the high-stakes story that develops there will please readers with its mounting tension.
A readable and elaborate, if somewhat didactic, novel about a man finding his true destiny on a faraway planet.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
PROFILES
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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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