Dense but engaging speculative fiction that focuses on the disquieting misuse of new tech.
In Marie’s YA SF series installment, a third-year student in an elite science school is troubled when her cohorts—and her parents—unquestioningly accept an implanted brain-enhancement device.
Cognation Academy is an intrigue-ridden science and technology boarding school of the future, first unveiled in After Intelligence: The Hidden Sequence (2020), which introduced teen hero Charlotte Blythe as a second-year student. Now, she’s in her third year at an institution that produces such inventions as contact lens digital “viewers” and startlingly humanlike androids, which are later incorporated into wider society. The latest paradigm-shift invention is the “soulmate”—a small, implantable data capsule that promises to upgrade virtual-reality sensations, enable new skills, and link human minds (“an amazing innovation that is going to significantly help people everywhere”). Despite the hype, Charlotte is wary of the soulmate’s intrusive nature, especially after her discoveries (in previous novels) of the dark secrets of Cognation’s late founder and his rogue artificial-intelligence projects. What if a soulmate can be hacked and abused—perhaps allowing mass mind-control? Her fears are not allayed when she finds out that the pioneering developers and first adopters of the soulmate are none other than her own parents. Soon, a growing number of students and faculty members are happily undergoing soulmate procedures, including some who’d vowed not to do so—including Charlotte’s boyfriend, Gavin Hooper. The ultra-logical androids aren’t swept up in the soulmate wave, and a few assist Charlotte in investigating whether the tech is part of a nightmarish conspiracy. Marie’s boarding school SF series entry is kind of a YA cousin (and perhaps even a soulmate) to Jack Finney’s influential and oft-filmed The Body Snatchers (1955). The narrative is low-key but effective in how it creates an atmosphere of rising paranoia as the walls close in on a dwindling number of students and adult characters unaffected by the new tech. It finishes on a cliffhanger, even though the story generally prioritizes dialogue, codebreaking, and puzzle-solving over more action-oriented thrills. Invested readers will want to continue to follow the curriculum in future series installments.
Dense but engaging speculative fiction that focuses on the disquieting misuse of new tech.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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