An absurdist sci-fi romp.
In Sales’ first sci-fi novel in an announced trilogy, a superpowered mutant in the 23rd century trains for his alien-influenced destiny.
In a somewhat Joseph Heller–esque 23rd century, mankind realizes that the Hoodia, reptilian aliens determined to make Homo sapiens less warlike and troublesome, have been guiding its destiny and evolution for millennia. To this end, the Hoodia have used computer projections to simulate “Angels” and spirit-possessions. From time to time, they also create a “jump reactor,” a messiah figure, to kick the paradigm up a notch—an especially high-risk job that can go badly wrong. The latest selection is Raymond Sky, a “Quad-Core mutant” with titanium-reinforced superstructure, an extra lung that allows brief periods of survival in the vacuum of space, and the equivalent of nuclear-fusion reactors in his body. (In the book’s typically wonky fashion, it’s explained that his father was secretly the Greek god Neptune.) He also has a turtle-shaped helper droid, à la R2-D2, who rides on his back and gives him the nickname “the Camel.” After an abortive career as a treasure hunter, the hapless Ray is groomed to become a secret agent. He’s also inducted into the human elite secret society Scalps and Skeletons and still finds time for a beginning romance. It all ends with his first jump-reactor assignment to signal mankind’s leap from glorified monkeys to citizens of the universe. Needless to say, the overall mission is a bit of a silly one, as is the mystifying series of tasks that Ray must complete in the Scalps and Skeletons recruitment ritual. The secret society also eats up a lot of the book’s narrative bandwidth. The book’s lateral-thinking storyline and quirky sense of humor, however, tend to recall the cult-movie hero of the 1984 sci-fi film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension!. Buckaroo’s credo, “No matter where you go, there you are,” would fit right in with this novel’s prose.
An absurdist sci-fi romp.Pub Date: May 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-942995-04-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Michael Allen Sales
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2015
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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