Pure "hard" sf of the finest: developing and embellishing some of the ideas put forth in One Human Minute (1986), Leto presents a disturbing, highly intelligent, and scathing account of medium-future humanity's attempt to contact an extraterrestrial civilization. When unmistakable signs of technological civilization are detected on a planet hidden inside the Coalsack nebula, an expedition—including a priest and an amnesiac—is dispatched with orders to study the aliens and make contact. In spaceship Hermes, they duly arrive near planet Quinta, where facts quickly accumulate but prove baffling. On Quinta itself, the inhabitants have set up powerful transmitters that prevent all communication by broadcasting white noise. The planet itself is surrounded by a ring of ice, as if the natives had decided to expel some of their oceans' water into space and then given up the project halfway through. An experiment, or weapon, or device, of fusion energy lies abandoned on Quinta's moon. Hermes captures two dead Quintan satellites; both are infected with virus-like molecules that probably caused the satellites' destruction. Efforts to communicate with the Quintans produce no response. Suddenly Hermes is attacked with devastating weapons; only the reactions of the computer, DEUS, and the human mastery of "sidereal engineering" (gravity control) save them from disaster. Captain Steergard is forced to conclude that two or more factions on Quinta are permanently locked in a deadly space war. Nevertheless, Steergard's orders are to make contact, and this he will proceed to do—even if it means destroying the Quintans in the process. Throughout, Lem's scientific extrapolations are nothing short of brilliant; his characters too are fully realized—including computer DEUS. There are a few minor drawbacks: an overextended and largely irrelevant prologue; the usual, and still unreal, absence of women; and frequent digressions that, while illuminating, also distract from the narrative. Powerful, brooding, fascinating work, with a frightening and urgent message for Star Wars-mongers.
Pub Date: May 26, 1987
ISBN: 0156306301
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987
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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