A mind-expanding SF/international-adventure thriller, with density to match its ambition.
An American archaeologist driven by nameless impulses while on an Andes Mountains dig discovers ancient, astoundingly advanced technology.
Archaeologist Dylan Smith investigates a dig in the Peruvian Andes that may rewrite history. At least 3,000 years old, the Peruvian caves and hieroglyphics predate Mayans and resemble ancient Egypt. Temporarily trapped in an underground ritual room by an earthquake, Smith uses his trusty iPad (iPads get a great deal of shoutouts here) to record an incredible concealed artifact, a cylinder of synthetic quartz holding a strange, multipart vial. Smith learns the relic is called an opticae. “Collectively, the microscopic machines could think, reproduce, infect, communicate, and more.” It’s not alien (extraterrestrials are dismissed early on) but rather a legacy of the Foundation, a lost human culture that achieved unimaginable advancement many millennia before modern recorded history. Now, a few exceptional (or monstrous) individuals wield the power of this ancient technology and its DNA–level network that links all higher life forms. Imprinting on his opticae, Smith gradually develops heightened perceptions and even accesses genetic memories of earlier lifetimes. This development attracts the attention of his past-life nemesis, Lewis Eden, a shadowy Bay Area billionaire philanthropist who is “posthuman,” filled with fiendish nanotech, able to cast dangerous, reality-distorting illusions, and reincarnate himself. Eden battles for world domination against “the School,” another group of adepts who seem to come to Dylan’s aid. But is the School truly an ally? Bohacz weaves a transfixing web of globetrotting intrigue, quasi-psychic combat, and eras-spanning adventure that should appeal to the Dan Brown readership (though minus Brown’s notoriously addictive, short-chapter narrative structure). If the elaborate rules of this worldwide wizard duel seem a more than a little slippery, elastic, and contradictory, the thrill-ride is an intelligent and tricky one that pays off at the end of its complex journey. Sequels seem predestined.
A mind-expanding SF/international-adventure thriller, with density to match its ambition.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.
When a bunch of corporate assholes mark their planet for destruction, a garage band of colonists must defend their home world with the power of rock.
Slightly sidestepping his frenetic litRPG—literary role-playing game—doorstoppers, here Dinniman takes on capitalism, propaganda, xenophobia, and violence as entertainment. Thankfully for readers, it’s all wrapped in the usual profane, adolescent humor, and SF readers will have a ball. A couple of hundred years after they left Earth, the inhabitants of the interstellar colony of New Sonora weren’t expecting much in the way of new threats, especially after a mysterious illness killed almost everyone between the ages of 30 and 60. That disaster left only the young and the old on the populated planet, where farming is enabled by highly accelerated AI and people are generally cool with each other. But when drummer Oliver Lewis stumbles across a foul-mouthed killer mech piloted by a child, he realizes that something’s definitely fishy. Earth, it seems, has classified the New Sonorans as non-human and scheduled their destruction as a paid, five-day combat game. Apex Industries, led by lead mercenary Eli Opel, has reverse-engineered Ender’s Game and is turning loose its players with real bullets and bombs on the population of New Sonora. The resistance is a weird bunch, led by proto-slacker Oliver; his little sister, Lulu; and his ex-girlfriend, documentary filmmaker and burgeoning revolutionary Rosita Zapatero, as well as the other members of Oliver’s band, the Rhythm Mafia. Thankfully, they also have Roger, the last functioning AI on the planet, though Oliver’s grandfather permanently programmed it to nannybot mode as a dying joke. Call the book overlong—the battle scenes often feel like watching someone play a videogame—but the humor and the execution are cutting without being mean and there’s almost always a point.
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9780593820308
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
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