by A. Michael Marsh ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2013
This rousing sci-fi series opener deftly balances action, characterization, and concept.
A post-apocalyptic novel sees a young man searching for his father and a cure for the mutations that have swept the world.
Center City is a wasteland of filthy strangers and roving gangs, all desperate for food, shelter, and other resources. The Sickness has struck, killing “something like” 80 percent of the population and causing many of the survivors to mutate and gain special powers. Sixteen-year-old Oscar looks for his missing father, an anthropologist who might be the key to halting the Sickness. With him is 13-year-old Alan, who’s one of the Changed. He has enormous glowing eyes and can speak with animals. On the way to the safety of the Arcadia compound, run by family friend Adele, Oscar and Alan must avoid the zealots who follow Walter, a God-fearing man who believes the Changed are demons. When the boys encounter the followers of Eli, who’s incorporating the Changed under his banner, security seems within reach. Eli’s men, however, are hunting a woman with plant-based powers named Roxy and her hulking companion, Art. The teens help the Changed individuals escape and take them on as allies. Oscar, while remaining hopeful that he’ll find his father, continues to have vivid dreams that mention someone called the Messenger. In this sci-fi series opener, Marsh (The Red, 2012) offers well-conceived superpowers (reminiscent of X-Men) and a land gripped by scarcity and lawlessness (as in The Walking Dead). His prose rings with surreal elegance in depicting the Changed, like the chameleon man whose “eyes puffed out from his skull. Blue, all-too-human irises sat inside scaled mounds of flesh, which moved independently from one another.” While Walter’s faction is terrible, Eli acts on the words God speaks directly to him. Marsh is careful never to equate spirituality with madness, and deepens the discussion when Roxy says, “The Universe isn’t limited by our understanding of it.” Though verbose at times, the narrative should satisfy action junkies as it ramps up to a grisly finale. Oscar comes into his own as a hero to rally around.
This rousing sci-fi series opener deftly balances action, characterization, and concept.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4922-2508-9
Page Count: 222
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
143
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Max Brooks
BOOK REVIEW
by Max Brooks
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Blake Crouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Share your opinion of this book
More by Blake Crouch
BOOK REVIEW
by Blake Crouch
BOOK REVIEW
by Blake Crouch
BOOK REVIEW
by Blake Crouch
More About This Book
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.