Loved ones rediscover kinship and common ground in this rich, absorbing dystopian tale.
A mother and her daughter struggle to understand one another and their clashing 22nd-century worlds in Barash’s sci-fi debut.
Erika Verne loses her cyberneticist fiancé to a brutal murder before their daughter is even born. She feels the only way to protect her baby, Veronica, from “this awful world” is to get the girl into Prism, an expansive virtual-reality world. Erika can’t afford this, as she lives in poverty in California City’s smog-covered Groundtown. Fortunately, Paragon, the company behind Prism, chooses Veronica to be part of an experiment to “install” a newborn who’ll grow up in this so-called digital paradise. After 25 years, Erika has seen her daughter face to face a mere eight days per year. But this latest Visitors’ Weekend in Prism takes an unexpected turn after something Veronica has done gets her unceremoniously disconnected. She’s in the real world for the first time in a quarter-century, enduring such brand-new trials as hunger pangs. The mother and daughter regularly bump heads, but not all of their conflict is internal; someone tries to kill one of the women in an apparent murder-for-hire. Erika turns to Wolf, her late fiancé’s friend and business partner, who can help keep Erika and Veronica hidden from whoever is targeting them. Veronica, however, is more invested in finding a particular person tied to a mysterious code, which necessitates a rare trip off the mainland. While it seems that Veronica only wants to return to Prism, Erika doesn’t give up hope that she can somehow connect with her daughter.
Barash has deftly grounded this novel with meticulous worldbuilding. The social classes are visibly separated; the more upscale Midtown and Uptown are accessible via elevators at a Vertical Transport Hub or a taxi-like flyer that requires authorization. Despite the distant-future setting, the story is topical, with characters preferring VR over the frustrations and responsibilities of the real world. The mother-daughter dynamic provides the novel’s fuel—there’s no doubt that Erika has sacrificed a lot for Veronica, whose initial hostility gradually eases up. Many of their conversations spin off into philosophical discourse, giving the narrative a noticeably unhurried pace; this approach perfectly suits the story of two women who are truly getting to know each other. (“I thought you had lived a life of uniform melancholy. I never knew you had once been happy,” Veronica muses. “I didn’t even imagine it was possible.”) The novel hits on familiar sci-fi themes to great effect, including humanity surviving in a world dependent on technology, and the psychological fallout experienced by a VR-immersed (or tech-obsessed) person suddenly cut off. Several mysteries unspool as the story progresses, including stories behind the murder of Veronica’s father and Erika’s facial scar and cybernetic eye. The author’s prose evocatively describes worlds both virtual and real: “They passed below a suspension of fine fishing net into a seemingly makeshift bazaar filled with drying fish and seaweed, scavenged sea-junk, and a patchwork of rugged clothes.” The final act burns with sheer intensity all the way to the end.
Loved ones rediscover kinship and common ground in this rich, absorbing dystopian tale.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9798993078977
Page Count: 750
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2026
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
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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