A pointed and entertaining political allegory on American society.
A fable centers on authority and ambition.
The beginning of Falkner’s (Dangerous Wishcraft, 2013) novella revolves around Jeremiah Abadon, a thoroughly loathsome man, “disliked and distrusted,” but also very wealthy. He’s traveling with his slaves, neglected children, and miserable 42 wives, trying to stay one step ahead of the angry citizens of every city where he sets up shop. He’s seeking to settle down, and when he and his followers reach a vale heavily planted with trees that trigger allergic sneezing, they decide to name the place Achoo. Jeremy likes the land for its natural beauty but also for its seclusion and the safety it might afford him from his enemies. He appoints himself king and establishes a monarchy. Generations later, each successive ruler is chosen by various physical contests and reigns for life. One year, the current king unwisely decides to participate in a competition “during holiday celebrations, along with the villagers.” The contest involves jumping a horse across a large number of toilets. When the king ends up headfirst in a toilet and soon dies from shock, Achoo is left without a monarch. A remedy for the chaos is decided upon: a footrace will be held. There are many entrants, and one of them is older than the others and thoroughly out of shape: Orgizo Abadon, distant descendant of the despicable Jeremy. Orgizo is a spoiled, sour figure, “accustomed to being first in everything because of his privileged position at birth,” and he cheats his way to victory in the race. He likewise wins against the odds in the subsequent contests and becomes king of Achoo, even though the monarchy has never interested him—only power. The long contests for kingship, the various candidates for the crown, and the squalid figure of Orgizo himself are all deftly drawn, easily recognizable stand-ins for the primaries and contenders—and eventual winner—of the 2016 U.S. presidential race. (Readers are told that Orgizo vows to “make Achoo great again.”) The playfulness of Falkner’s prose—“How could this have happened?” the tearful villagers wonder. “Would their village even survive under Orgizo?”—offsets a good amount of the satiric bitterness that can be perceived under the amusing fable. The author can be a bit heavy-handed—an occupational hazard of allegories—but in general her treatment is enjoyable enough for both blue state and red state readers.
A pointed and entertaining political allegory on American society.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-2203-6
Page Count: 76
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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