In Pimpinella’s debut SF novel, an elite military corps strives to prevent damage to history by rogue time travelers, but one Time Ranger strains under the pressure of a fast-track career.
In the 22nd century, the invention of time travel allowed the ThirdEye Corporation to employ reckless Time Runners who accidentally or deliberately disrupted history. To set the timeline straight and prevent potential catastrophe, the members of an elite military corps called the Time Rangers travel back in time and correct anachronisms and anomalies, using deadly force if necessary. Kai Sawyer is a young graduating Time Ranger cadet who’s uncomfortable that he’s headed for a command role solely due to the machinations of his father, a powerful rear admiral obsessed with carrying on the family name. Kai is also a Spawn, created in a lab to be stronger, hardier, and more aggressive than the average human. That, combined with a harsh upbringing, results in Sawyer making impulsive decisions on his first missions. In 1995 London, for instance, he coldly kills a maverick freelance journalist from the future in a public place. In 1912, he nearly freezes while ensuring that the Titanic sinks with zero survivors, instead of hundreds, to remedy the fact that a Time Runner boarded it with a virus from the future. Kai faces his worst ordeal in 1634 France, where a larger-scale conspiracy seeks to advance Western medicine far ahead of schedule. Over the course of this novel, Pimpinella delivers a spry, action-filled SF tale full of time paradoxes and fills it out with solid characterizations and a particularly agonized hero. The conflicted relationship between father and son is handled well, and it would not be out of place in a work of earthbound, non–SF military fiction. The author doesn’t provide a lot of historical flavor in most of the time-tripping episodes, but Kai’s ordeal in 17th-century France may remind a few readers of the settings in Victor Hugo’s classic 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. (Readers should be aware that this book is unrelated to John Schettler’s 2004 novel Nexus Point, which also focuses on time travel.)
An effective blend of time-travel tropes and military fiction about family loyalties, expectations, and betrayal.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5255-9548-6
Page Count: 330
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: SCIENCE FICTION | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION
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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
84
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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
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Things aren't what they seem in the supposedly idyllic state of Prospera.
Cronin’s latest takes place in Prospera, an archipelago state that “exists in splendid isolation, hidden from the world.” The main island is designed to be something of a paradise, “free of all want and distraction,” where residents are urged to pursue art and personal betterment. The Annex, another island, is “home to the support staff—men and women of lesser biological and social endowments.” Proctor Bennett lives on the main island and works as a “ferryman”—when his fellow residents become older or infirm, he escorts them to a boat that will carry them to the “Nursery Isle,” where they are reborn as teenagers who will then rejoin Prospera. One day, Proctor learns that the next person he’s in charge of ferrying is his father, and it turns out the old man doesn’t go quietly—on the way to the pier, he begins muttering seemingly incomprehensible phrases, telling his son, “The world is not the world,” and “You’re not...you.” Then things get even more complicated: Proctor meets art dealer Thea, who’s tight with a group of dissatisfied Annex residents, and then he gets fired from his job, which leads him to believe Prospera might not be everything he’s thought it was. He’s also trying to navigate his increasingly rocky marriage to Elise, a fashion designer whose mother, Callista, is the chair of the Board of Overseers for All Prospera—“the boss of everything.” The twists in this novel are plentiful and authentically surprising, and although there are tons of moving parts, Cronin does a wonderful job handling them. This is a dystopian novel that doubles as a detective story, and Proctor is an appealing protagonist, semi-hard-boiled but never descending into cliché. Cronin’s prose is solid, and he handles the dialogue, sometimes leavened with humor, expertly. It’s a hefty book that moves with an astounding quickness—yet another excellent offering from an author with a boundless imagination and talent to spare.
Twisty, thrilling, and beautifully written.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780525619475
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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