Well-sketched characters carry a slow-paced but effective start to a potential series.
In this future-set Christian thriller, experts must decide if alarming global events are signs of an approaching apocalypse.
One day in 2038, barrages of fiery hailstones pummel countries around the world. This freak incident is over quickly, but its impact lasts much longer as the hailstones severely burned anyone and anything they hit. The president of the United States puts together a committee of scientists to try to provide an explanation for the damaging storms. Other terrifying global events follow, including ocean vortexes that take down ships; apparently contaminated water that causes hallucinations and violent episodes; and other natural disasters, including earthquakes. Mike Lathan, who’s studying pastoral ministry in Dallas, and a promising Seattle science student named Rina Adelstein join their respective mentors at experts’ meetings, where some are convinced that there’s a scientific explanation for all that’s happening. Spiritual advisors, however, note similarities between the ongoing events and familiar biblical stories. Mike and others believe that the phenomena are God’s punishment for an amoral world and part of a prophecy foretelling the End of Days. Scott deftly packs a world-spanning tale into a relatively compact novel. Along the way, he zeroes in on the absorbing romance between Mike and Rina; both characters are well-developed, as when Rina faces a personal tragedy back in her hometown of Tel Aviv. Secondary characters receive much less attention, but several brief scenes reveal the devastating events’ worldwide consequences, showcasing specific effects on such places as North Africa, Japan, and Italy: “As Francesco Vincenzo was locking up his private law office, he heard the noise and looked upward toward the gulf to see what appeared to be a black cloud, a very large one, moving rapidly toward the downtown area.” The author weaves an overt but never overwhelming Christian theme into the storyline, which proceeds as a deliberate pace as several rounds of discussions churn out proposals while passing years pile on catastrophes. The book covers just over a decade, and its ending hints at a sequel.
Well-sketched characters carry a slow-paced but effective start to a potential series.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9798985687002
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blesscott Company, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2023
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
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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