A nuanced, captivating examination of what the near future might have in store.
This SF debut novel sees the higher-ups of a tech super-company grapple with ethical concerns while hostile forces scheme to break the behemoth’s monopoly.
The Artemis biotech company, based in San Francisco, has its origins in medical advancements—processes that target areas of the brain to achieve sight for the blind, hearing for the deaf, movement for paraplegics, and a cure for drug addiction. But by 2042, Artemis has used its mastery of neural pathways to expand into the more profitable realm of “casting”—an intimate sensory media that allows people to broadcast their experiences to paying customers. While co-founder Peter Graham had the best of intentions in pushing for this development, a confluence of corporate, governmental, and global interests has brought Artemis to a precarious ethical position. Casts come not only with subliminal advertising, but also a secret layer of “embeds”—deeply buried tenets designed to nudge users toward or away from particular behaviors. Such force-feeding from up high seems the tradeoff for having vetted equipment and regulated content. While Katherine Tanaka, Artemis’ head of Corporate Communications, has largely made peace with the practice, her boyfriend, Harbrinder Singh, has been working behind her back to promote an ad-free but unregulated “OpenCast” alternative. Will Artemis continue as a conflicted force for good or will its dark secret undo the company and its founders? Mitchell employs straightforward, clear prose in detailing Artemis’ rise to prominence and credible future predicated on modern trends. While the chapters carry the names of their viewpoint players, these protagonists tend somewhat to be ciphers through which Mitchell breaks down the larger character of society itself. One of the novel’s strengths is that it eschews authorial agendas in favor of gray areas. Thus, both sides act reprehensibly but with laudable or at least clear motives. Even the autistic coder Henry is driven to push his own reactionary ideals—the clandestine “JesusNet”—on others in part because he objects to Peter’s having promoted progressive values (including “homosexuality is not a sin”). Unfortunately, the story sometimes lacks impetus and ends rather abruptly. Nonetheless, the exploration of a key concept is compelling: monopolized security or free will? Readers will find plenty here to mull over.
A nuanced, captivating examination of what the near future might have in store.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798992839913
Page Count: 216
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2025
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
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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