Marsh blends superpowers, paramilitary action, and alien machinations to triumphant effect in this follow-up.
In Marsh’s (The Changed, 2013, etc.) sequel, a superpowered contingent hopes to harness alien devices that can tame a plague.
The farming community of Salvation, formerly Pogo Springs, is within the local quarantine zone. The Sickness that killed 80 percent of the area’s population—while granting some of the survivors superpowers—rampages still. Sixteen-year-old Oscar is one of the Changed; specifically, he’s the Messenger—a position that’s vital to humanity’s survival since he’s able to telepathically communicate with helpful aliens. One day, two intruders breach the quarantine: a scientist in a hazmat suit and a soldier who shoots and wounds the scientist before he delivers a mysterious metal case. Oscar, meanwhile, has been in a mental realm that he calls The Nowhere, talking with the alien Teleoinan. He’s learned that the microorganism causing the Sickness, the Manal, is evolving into something even more dangerous. Oscar’s people already possess an orb-shaped piece of alien technology called the Vessel; now they must recover the scepterlike Conductor to, as Teleoinan says, “stop all this from spreading.” However, Teleoinan’s disembodied nemesis, Thevetat, may still be influencing people, as some in Salvation are ready to use violence to force local change. Also, Oscar finds that the dying scientist possesses a photo of his missing father. For this high-stakes sequel, Marsh delivers a sci-fi adventure that keeps characterization and strong emotion in the foreground without sacrificing action. He subtly comments on America’s entrenched partisan politics with the verbal sparring and division in Salvation; in one scene, Oscar’s friend Roxy tells a manipulative blowhard: “It’s not about being right. It’s about keeping people safe.” Although the violence is brutal—often echoing real-life terrorism—Marsh keeps things light and nerdy with references to Captain Planet and the Planeteers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Clever new members of the Changed tribe include a humanoid dog named Donald and Zelda, who can absorb and retain information from printed content (such as an encyclopedia) through her hands. Even as certain mysteries are explained, a fiendishly bold cliffhanger ensures that fans will return for the next volume.
Marsh blends superpowers, paramilitary action, and alien machinations to triumphant effect in this follow-up.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5472-3278-9
Page Count: 254
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An intriguing unlocking of underwater secrets, with the occasional thrill.
In the not-too-distant future, a marine biologist specializing in cephalopod intelligence discovers a species of octopus with astonishing language skills—research that a giant corporation wants to monetize.
Dr. Ha Nguyen is so amazed by her findings that she's willing to submit herself to the odious tactics of the big tech company, which controls the Vietnamese island where the octopuses dwell. Having "resettled" the population of the Con Dao Archipelago, the company not only will kill any outsiders who attempt to set foot there, but also has ordered Ha's death should she attempt to leave. Not that she has any inclination to do so. Once exposed to the octopuses, she is determined to uncover the great mysteries of extrahuman intelligence. In spite of their hostile reputation, these are creatures of transcendent beauty, communicating through glowing visual symbols that move on their skin in complex patterns and sequences. In a world of robot-operated slave ships, bee-size drones, and AI automonks with three-fingered hands and light receptors for pupils, her main ally is Evrim, the world's first and possibly last true android, which not only thinks like a human being, but also believes it is conscious. Ha's benefactor and adversary is Dr. Arnkatla Mínervudóttir-Chan, the Icelandic brains of the corporation, whose ultimate goal is to create a mind "wiped clean of its limitations." A prolific writer of SF stories making his debut as a novelist, Nayler maintains a cool, cerebral tone that matches up with the story's eerie underpinnings. Less an SF adventure than a meditation on consciousness and self-awareness, the limitations of human language, and the reasons for those limitations, the novel teaches as it engages.
An intriguing unlocking of underwater secrets, with the occasional thrill.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-60595-7
Page Count: 464
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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