A succinct and witty genre-hopping romp that entertainingly favors character over story.
This third installment of Bushnell’s metafictional SF series follows the lives of several whimsical characters of various species.
Halycon Sage has earned the title of Greatest Novelist of the Century with his two-sentence novels. He lives in a post-apocalyptic world that no longer has modern technology, including the internet. It does, however, have alien Squids; F. Atty. Lumpkin, a cat lawyer; and, much to Sage’s chagrin, aspiring writers who steal his minimalist style. This relatively short novel is, for the most part, a mélange of short stories, poetry, and other narrative modes. Bushnell offers plenty of comedy in an entertaining variety of formats, including legal documents, email correspondence, book excerpts, and the transcript for a live TV studio recording. Likewise, Sage is just one member of an impressive ensemble; in fact, one may argue that Lumpkin gets the brightest spotlight—which is why, at one point, several members of the supporting cast sign a formal complaint. It should come as no surprise that plot takes a back seat to a string of asides, as when Sage, for example, complains when his editor pressures him to write a blog. Elsewhere, TechieSquid debates his own species’ customs and those of “Eartheans,” and human literary critic Basel Vasselschnauzer goes looking for Sage, which connects to “trials and adventures” from preceding series installments. Nevertheless, this book’s best parts come from the inclusion of the author as a character in her own story; she insists that Sage is the one who’s dreamed up an “imaginary author,” which makes their eventual run-in wonderfully surreal. Bushnell also intermittently takes over Lumpkin’s diary entries, leading to tender moments in which the sickly feline requires multiple trips to the vet. There’s lighthearted artwork as well, from Oelenschlager, Spragins, and Hatch, such as an image of the “annoying” species Snrrr—an evidently inaccurate rendering that still “perfectly expresses their collective personality.”
A succinct and witty genre-hopping romp that entertainingly favors character over story.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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