Unpretentious and enthralling tales that feature SF elements.
A collection of short stories explores aliens, strange planets, and grim futuristic worlds.
In his introduction, Kuhn (Do You Realize?, 2017) cites The Twilight Zone as an inspiration for his tales. Much like the classic TV series, the stories here, though primarily SF, cover assorted subgenres, including comedy, horror, and melodrama. “A Drink of Knowledge,” for one, follows three young boys sampling moonshine who are nearby when a meteor crashes to Earth. There may be something inside a meteorite they find, but is it malevolent? A few tales, like the opening “My Little Girl,” are akin to fantasies but also boast SF elements such as parallel universes and time travel. The narratives are generally about control, which often ties in with humans’ potentially bleak future. In “Terror on Pandor-3,” an archaeological crew discovers an ancient artifact that, the group soon learns, has the means to control it. That may be the same thing Alica, the artificial intelligence in “For the Hive,” is doing to humans—presumably to protect them from risks (for example, a black hole). Even aliens try to effect control via the Galactic Empire, which crops up in two of the more indelible stories: “The Case Against Humanity” and “Sally Ann, Queen of the Galaxy.” The Empire in “Case” is deciding between admitting Earth to the organization and extinguishing humanity before it destroys itself. In the quirky latter tale, ruler-to-be Sally Ann is currently on Earth as a 12-year-old girl. But as she’s bright and already popular with the galaxy’s citizens, corrupt individuals in power may want to prevent her impending reign. Kuhn writes in an unadorned style with minimal details, though there are more than enough to spark the imagination. For example, one character in “Teach a Man To Fish” describes planet Rakislav as “where the air’s not breathable, the sky’s always gray, and the most exciting thing you’ll see is the lightning show during a dust storm.” Despite all the fantastic goings-on, characters also grapple with serious, timely issues, including child abuse and racism.
Unpretentious and enthralling tales that feature SF elements.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64343-904-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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