Lengthy, immersive cyber-SF that puts fresh life into a familiar operating system.
A troubled cybernetics “mechanic” is forced to join an elite squad of government agents to halt the insidious spread of deadly software in Weald’s sci-fi thriller.
The impressive debut of author Weald (aka Michael Woodworth) is set in the Chicago megapolis, year 2195. Lee Hall is a brilliant but obscure “mechanic” IT expert who services the cybernetics essential to human life throughout the solar system. Everyone has “bots,” and even the North American government runs in tandem with a regulating AI, maintaining society through ubiquitous surveillance. But after a renegade software update goes broadband, robots act erratically, even homicidally, by exhibiting forbidden traits of anger and free will. Lee is on the crime scene of one murder-by-machine and winds up forcibly recruited to join agents Ren and Jace, physically and mentally enhanced operatives of the elite Division 13, to learn what’s behind the dangerous Qualia Code now viral throughout civilization and how to stop it. For Lee, abandoned by parents who fled to deep space rather than live on a roboticized Earth and feeling heartbroken after divorce, the investigation comes dangerously close to home. The robot-uprising SF plotline is, literally, as old as robots in literature. The concept of a tech-soaked urban sprawl with overlay environments of virtual- and augmented-reality enjoyed by citizens wired directly into the digital mesh is cyberpunk 101. Weald does not radically reinvent such concepts, but thinks their aspects through with a seriousness of purpose and nuanced characterizations. Throughout, one finds the efforts of a serious literary novelist lavished on material that otherwise would fuel scores of sci-fi potboiler paperbacks and Japanese anime. Quad-core-rapid action/combat scenes (“Some of the soldiers were torn apart by metal hands so fast their last thoughts were lively curses towards the attacker”) should sate fans, while those who find cyberpunk a 1990s fad long obsolete can salute how the material transcends a self-referential pastiche of retro-noir cliches, one of the form’s pitfalls.
Lengthy, immersive cyber-SF that puts fresh life into a familiar operating system.Pub Date: June 22, 2023
ISBN: 979-8987879801
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Plenty of excitement for Clancy fans.
Chinese president Li Jian Jun plans a sneak attack on Taiwan, and it’s up to the Jack Ryan administration to stop him without going to war.
President Li announces a naval exercise, but his real plan is Operation Sea Serpent, the lightning reunification of Taiwan. His minister of defense, Admiral Qin Hâiyû, thinks the idea is crazy because a great number of people would die, but he can’t say so. Li is not a man to be challenged, and he’s already had one of his ministers executed. But Qin wants to stop the war before it begins. Perhaps he can get word to the Americans so they can cut off the mad scheme, and he’s troubled by whether his actions will make him a traitor or a patriot. A Western asset nicknamed the Spider helps facilitate his dangerous disappearance as he attempts to leave China, and authorities in Beijing don’t know if he’s been kidnapped or has defected. Meanwhile, the Ryan administration wants to get him safely extracted from mainland China. President Ryan orders that an American naval vessel will transit through the Strait of Taiwan, which the People’s Republic has blockaded. Will there be a bloody showdown that triggers a major war? So much can go wrong, and there are series regulars like John Clark and Ding Chavez at the tip of the spear. And there’s also Katie Ryan, a lieutenant commander with the Office of Naval Intelligence who’s deployed to Taiwan because she’s “one hell of an intelligence analyst” who “thinks outside the box.” She’s a “rising star” who refuses to trade on her relationship with her father, President Ryan. There’s not much violence, although there’s enough to call it a military thriller. One brave American is fading fast from a round to his chest, but he has time to smile about that “hot” Katie Ryan. (Yes, yes, we all like the Ryans.) The novel’s big question is not which nation wins, but whether they fight. Bravery and clear thinking will have to come from both sides. By the way, Jack Junior isn’t in this one—it’s Katie’s time to shine.
Plenty of excitement for Clancy fans.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593717974
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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