An ambitious interplanetary tale that’s hampered by haphazard execution.
Aliens, mercenaries, and hyperevolved house cats collide in a drug-fueled, blood-soaked road quest to save the world in Hammond’s SF novel.
Away in the far reaches of space, the planet Halteres is home to the Arca Trochia, an omniscient fungus with the power to transport the world’s violent alien factions to their new chosen dominion: Earth. But there, the hapless and depressive human author Dr. Stanley Ivan Vanderbilt believes that Halteres is just the product of his imagination. Ten years ago, he was unknowingly seeded by the Arca Trochia’s spores, and he wrote about Halteres’ inhabitants as a means to escape from his unfulfilling life. Now, he’s fallen under their influence again, and this time, they’ve compelled him to attach bionic opposable thumbs to his pet cats. Things spiral further out of control when the thumbs trigger an evolutionary leap, granting the cats sentience, psychic abilities, and miraculous biological advancements—but a tenuous grasp of morality, at best. Before long, Vanderbilt is at the mercy of his superpowered predator pets, and he’s also become a target for intergalactic assassins who can hijack human corpses. Injured, out of options, and desperate for a greater purpose, Vanderbilt flees blindly into the heart of the American Southwest. Along for the ride are Ashleigh,a mysterious and deadly vigilante with a souped-up car and a destination that she’s not planning to reveal anytime soon; Vanderbilt’s drug-addled best friend, Xeno; and his capricious feline companion, Patton. Along the way, the humans consume huge amounts of booze and drugs, visit the seedy underbellies of multiple places, find unlikely allies, and leave a gory path of destruction involving earthlings and aliens alike.
The novel employs an odd mix of campy grotesquerie, self-referential gag humor, and convoluted SF concepts, which makes it alternately intriguing and incoherent. Some readers may enjoy its irreverent, absurdist embrace of ultraviolent power fantasies, its hypersexual women who glory in their own objectification, and its grungy, sprawling fictional world, splattered with bodily fluids. Others, however, will find these same aspects rather off-putting, and they’ll feel that certain characters come off as offensive stereotypes. For the most part, Hammond is at his best in moments of stillness, when he allows his players to stop all the quipping and actually explore their connections to the world and one another. The author’s descriptions can be genuinely lovely, as when they address the American landscape, the feeling of being in a car headed nowhere, and the unbearable hugeness of the world in general. However, the novel feels torn between so many premises that none of them feel adequately explained. Several references are made to past events that aren’t elaborated upon, and the author introduces and discards a large number of secondary characters without ever fully fleshing them out. It’s not the most cohesive piece of science fiction, overall, but it is certainly never boring, and fans of its particular style will likely find themselves entertained by its hedonism and gruesome revelry.
An ambitious interplanetary tale that’s hampered by haphazard execution.Pub Date: May 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73398-717-2
Page Count: 396
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.
Like a truck with no brakes speeding down a steep mountain road, Islington’s latest is an adrenaline-fueled SF thrill ride that follows a biomechanically enhanced assassin as he tries to understand his mysterious origins.
The chaotic opening scene gives readers a clear indication of what they’re in for: Contract killer Azure, attempting to complete a mission, is involved in a life-or-death battle with a multieyed biomachine called an Argos. “The thing’s bipedal but has six gorilla-like arms that end in half-metre-long claws,” he complains. After Azure barely dispatches the monster and kills his target, his AI assistant, Atti, informs him of his next job: protecting an elderly—and incredibly rich—woman living in a sprawling underground bunker in the middle of nowhere. “Old Woman,” as Azure calls her, isn’t forthcoming with personal details; all Azure can suss out is that she may be the target of a powerful organized crime syndicate—the same organization that employs him! Is Azure’s ultimate goal to save her or kill her? Although the worldbuilding could’ve been more comprehensive, Islington’s editing choices are brilliant—he strips away the insignificant narrative content to create a streamlined, action-packed adventure with seemingly one goal: to keep the reader furiously turning pages. The various mysteries—Azure’s murky beginnings, the tragic death of his best friend years earlier, Old Woman’s true identity, etc.—maintain the momentum and intensity. The takeaway here is the narrative potential of the characters as well as the plethora of subjects that could be explored more deeply, like immortality for the rich, cloning, and the potential to create bioengineered nightmares for “security.” Islington leaves the conclusion tantalizingly ambiguous. This novel could be the jumping-off point for a memorable series.
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781668239247
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.
The first installment of Liu’s Julia Z saga is an SF thriller set in a near-future “post-truth age” where the use of AI and the inundation of digital disinformation and data pollution have blurred the lines between delusion and reality.
Julia—whose immigrant mother, a divisive political activist, was murdered during a border protest—has lived on her own since she was 14. A brilliant hacker now 23, she’s been trying to live in online anonymity, acutely aware of the multitude of ways she can be identified and tracked. Living in a Boston suburb and struggling to make ends meet, she inadvertently becomes entangled with a lawyer named Piers Neri and his search for his artist wife, Elli Krantz—famous for her experimental work in vivid dreaming—who may or may not have been kidnapped. A prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance, Piers goes on the run with the help of Julia—and together, they begin putting together pieces of a mind-bogglingly intricate puzzle that links Elli to a powerful criminal with a global reach. As Julia digs deeper into the appeal of vivid dreaming and the criminal’s ruthless endeavors, she discovers the sham that is the American Dream: “America was corrupt and steeped in sin. The powerful had rigged the game for themselves and turned the country into a panopticon to imprison the rest of us. Anytime one of the powerless—it didn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you spoke, the place you were born in—was on the verge of climbing out, they would be ruthlessly tossed back into the pit.” And amid the backdrop of dealing with unresolved childhood trauma and the need to find her place in the world, she finds something unexpected—herself.
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781668083178
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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