Satisfying as a novel, anxiety-inducing as a comment on our society.
Older wraps up her trilogy of near-future thrillers (Null States, 2017, etc.) that focus on the influence of news on politics.
Five years after the last election, micro-democracy—a global system in which every centenal, or area of 100,000 people, votes on a policy-based, not location-based, governing party—is once again under threat as a new election looms. Micro-democracy is operated by Information, an organization which both manages the communication infrastructure and disseminates all data, gathered through constant surveillance and analysis. Attacks on Information data transfer stations, the disappearance of many Information employees (probably to null states outside of the micro-democratic system), a newly discovered underground tunnel of unknown purpose, strangely targeted election ads, and a rising tide of locally sourced data suggest that one or more factions are plotting to overthrow or at least compete with the monolithic Information. Various characters affiliated with Information—Maryam, a “techie”; Mishima, an assassin and spy–turned–reluctant politician; Mishima’s inexperienced but game new assistant, Amran; and the heavily pregnant analyst Roz—seek the source of these incidents. In the process, they wonder: Can Information be saved? And more importantly, should Information be saved? As in the previous two entries, Older here grapples directly and clearly with contemporary issues while tying up the loose ends in a believable way. The novel asks the questions we need to ask today—how do we know a source of information (small-i) is telling us the truth? Is it safer to believe a larger, more established, but possibly hidebound and biased organization or a smaller, more nimble group that might be more sensitive to local context and concerns but almost certainly also has its own agenda?—but doesn’t pretend to answer them. At least Older’s world shows one significant advance: Many of the major players are women and are a fairly diverse group overall.
Satisfying as a novel, anxiety-inducing as a comment on our society.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9947-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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