by Nick Sapien ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 5, 2011
A smart, solid skeleton of a story that lacks muscle.
A heroic geneticist stands against a tyrannical corporation in Sapien’s (Drosophila, 2007) cyberpunk novel.
In the future, a machine that distinguishes between truths and lies stands as the primary mechanism for social control. Most children arrive as a genetic cocktail of their parents’ choices, a process known as biosplicing. When Peter, a talented genetic engineer, lashes out against his biospliced boss, the truth machine reveals that he has committed a “hate crime.” To atone, Peter must undergo electro-surgery on his brain and prove to the truth machine that he no longer disdains the biospliced—or he’ll face exile to the Outcast Zone. But, after accidentally assaulting his beautiful neighbor Madeleine, Peter discovers a curious fact: He has mysteriously developed the ability to deceive the truth machine. This realization sends Peter down a rabbit hole of intrigue and deception, as he investigates the secret revolution against the Consortium, an all-powerful corporation that has assumed control of the government. Peter is also a book collector (books are little more than curiosities of a long-forgotten age), and his incomplete text of a revolutionary tract called The Red Book spurs him on his quest to find a use for his newfound power. After he somehow convinces Madeleine to fall in love with him after the assault, he searches for freedom for his family and an escape from the Consortium’s power. Sapien is at his best when building a unique but familiar world, a mix of Minority Report, The Matrix and Brave New World. Many standby cyberpunk elements fill out the novel—for instance, a neurological analogue to the Internet is the primary method of entertainment and sometimes work—but Sapien’s innovative truth machine provides a philosophical and ethical twist. However, the characters are mostly one-dimensional, especially Madeleine with her easy switch from anger and fear to love. It’s clear that Sapien enjoys battling the big ideas, which critical passages from The Red Book help illuminate, but the story itself, both in its pacing and the completeness of its characters, could benefit from more attention.
A smart, solid skeleton of a story that lacks muscle.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463440886
Page Count: 224
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Rebecca Yarros ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2023
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
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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.
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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
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