This intricate, big-data blast delivers a thrilling ride for cyberpunk SF fans.
Various factions in a tech-choked future nation-state compete ruthlessly for possession of an enigmatic, revolutionary device that could change everything.
Henderson—a professed admirer of William Gibson’s trendsetting Neuromancer (1984)—launches an ambitious cyberpunk SF series via this high-density download of digital intrigue, violent action, and radical body modification. The setting is the nation-state of Naion, roughly situated near today’s Singapore. The multitiered, cobbled-together—partially out of cargo containers—metropolis/environment is hermetically sealed against the toxic atmosphere of a future Earth reset by war, pollution, and plague. The millions inhabiting the roiling Naion, linked by the internetlike “Nebula,” range from artificial intelligence entities and humanoid robots to post-humans laden with cybernetic implants and upgrades. Seemingly all are subject to the machinations of powerful corporations and the government. Enforcing law and order falls to competing interests—from street-level “vigilants” to the state agency called Capca, which suffers a blow early on with the death of Yiju Gainen, an ambassador’s kidnapped little daughter, in a botched raid. The tragedy turns out to be one of a number of feints and schemes within schemes centered on possession of the Acorn, a mystery item promising amazing new mind-machine technology or incriminating data on a brewing scandal—or both, or neither, or more. While corporate mercenaries, minions, and idealists loyal to Capca try to trace the Acorn’s trail of murder and deceit through the “arcology,” it is Neon Nik, an obscure, down-on-his-luck hacker, who becomes the plot’s fulcrum when he inherits this MacGuffin from a deceased priest. Numerous key characters are dead even before the narrative commences, not helping with lucidity. But with the nature of the Acorn still unresolved at the end, the complex storyline offers enjoyable gigabytes of what SF fans used to call k-kewl: disintegrating urban environments; dives into virtual reality (including a dandy description of what social media might resemble); noirish attitude; sinister malware; transnational, multicultural mélanges for characters; and a knowledge base thicker than Windows 10 OS requirements to “grok” (decipher) the lingo. (“Upon command, Jilly’s friend list extruded from the sky. He locked onto Castir Shea’s puck coordinates and sent off his mote. He moved at light speed across an ocean of nonspace, from his data island to Castir’s, in a gust of infinite nothing.”) A prologue enumerates the sizable cast, a Tolstoy-size pantheon of major players.
This intricate, big-data blast delivers a thrilling ride for cyberpunk SF fans.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73575-909-8
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2021
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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