A Bible-referencing hellzapoppin SF comic-strip adventure.
Spacefaring hero Jason Cody, long presumed lost, resurfaces to face off against alien invaders and the devil himself in Corwin’s SF novel.
Earth’s legendary ace pilot Jason Cody is a prisoner on a mysterious, hellish planet called Vixus: He’s been captured by grotesque, mustard-yellow “tripod” aliens in the year 2140. They have tortured and vivisected Jason for a century (he’s now essentially a limbless torso) to learn his military secrets, but the hero has confidence God will get him out of even this jam. Indeed, God (or fate, or chance) sends Jason a savior in the supermodel-gorgeous form of Janet “Cat” Miles, leader of a fearsome, all-female “Fighting Fury” team sent by the Army Corps to investigate Vixus (which seems to reverse its rotation and appear at different places around the galaxy). Her perilous foray to Vixus coincides with a coup back on Earth launched by treacherous, secular military men against the faith-based ruling council; a cabal of rogue officers are eager to learn what incredible technology makes Vixus what it is and how to weaponize it. Jason Cody has had more than one narrow escape in the course of his illustrious, unnaturally extended lifetime—he was a boy dying of a leukemia-like illness in 2002 when he encountered a weird, yellow, tripod-shaped alien creature dredged up after spending 35,000 years in the La Brea Tar Pits. Oozing pus from the creature permeated Jason’s body, healing him and boosting his already formidable intellect through the stratosphere. As a young man and daring military pilot intent upon investigating a bizarre wormhole anomaly past Neptune, Jason combined his “Chi” natural energy (“the fundamental life force that flows through everything”) with technology to make the optical lasso, a light-bending device. When this piece of tech travels faster than light into space, it intercepts and returns light leaving Earth, allowing the optical lasso to show the future. By these means, Jason (after regenerating his limbs via alien tech) gets forewarned of an impending, nightmarish alien invasion not only targeting Earth but also the Centurions, who are (mostly) friendly, multi-legged lizard-creatures (though they shape-shift into various forms) whose contact with Homo sapiens was brought about by Cody. The master villain behind all of this malice? Blazing eyes, red skin, horns, a pitchfork, and scripture passages indicate it is none other than Satan.
In addition to quoting numerous popular song titles and lyrics throughout, the enthusiastic prose packs on the comic-book superhero references (“Technically I’m more like Green Lantern, except I gained strength from the color yellow instead of inheriting a weakness”), emphasizing the pulpier rather than the preachier elements of the material. The action rarely lets up in a narrative that feels like a rollercoaster riding another rollercoaster. The plot delivers generous helpings of surprises, though many of the twists hinge on very sketchy ground rules and shaky science (even Marvel and DC costumed avengers pretend to follow a playbook now and then). The dialogue is smart-alecky mixed with macho-expository (“looks like something scared him to death before ripping him apart and chewing on his entrails”). Lucifer, the ultimate bad guy, is used somewhat sparingly in this outing, which is a wise move—theologians will likely agree that John Milton gave him more depth. A sequel is in the works.
A Bible-referencing hellzapoppin SF comic-strip adventure.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9798854719193
Page Count: 489
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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