Government skullduggery mixes thrillingly with SF invention and eco-concerns in this speculative tale.
In Heaton’s SF thriller, sinister forces converge on an environmentalist who holds the key to a teleportation technology with troubling side effects.
This novel, the second in a series, takes place in an alternative 2009, in which a groundbreaking United States president is in office—not Barack Obama, but another Black man, Jamal Williams, who is tasked with cleaning up the mess of an unnamed previous administration whose invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan collapsed the international banking system. With intel indicating that Saudi Arabia’s oilfields are secretly running dry, Williams is one of numerous players who approach the high-profile, well-heeled eco-activist Uma Jakobsdóttir. Readers of the previous installment of this series will recall that she is the daughter of the late physicist who developed revolutionary teleportation technology (called “LEAP”) meant to replace fossil fuel-dependent transportation. The new tech had a troubling, unforeseen side effect: LEAP portals, combined with supercomputers, can copy organic matter at the atomic level, allowing users—presumably rich and powerful ones—to make living backup clones of themselves, becoming functionally immortal. Fearing a nightmarish future of “ ‘[s]oulless creatures feeding off discarded atoms like vampires with no memory of their sins,’ ” Uma, six years earlier, attempted to discredit LEAP as a hoax perpetrated by an airline mogul. But President Williams and others have grasped the truth: It actually works. Uma is pressured by the White House to roll out LEAP to combat carbon emissions; in the shadows, liberated suicide-bomber fanatics from Gitmo, treacherous Deep State forces, and an assassination plot rachet the tension high and hold the reader rapt. The machinations and motivations here are a bit murkier than one might prefer, but the extrapolations of untested, paradigm-shifting technology keep the pages turning. An epilogue offers a tantalizing taste of the next installment.
Government skullduggery mixes thrillingly with SF invention and eco-concerns in this speculative tale.Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 978-0956172037
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Rookwood Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.
Weir’s latest is a page-turning interstellar thrill ride that follows a junior high school teacher–turned–reluctant astronaut at the center of a desperate mission to save humankind from a looming extinction event.
Ryland Grace was a once-promising molecular biologist who wrote a controversial academic paper contesting the assumption that life requires liquid water. Now disgraced, he works as a junior high science teacher in San Francisco. His previous theories, however, make him the perfect researcher for a multinational task force that's trying to understand how and why the sun is suddenly dimming at an alarming rate. A barely detectable line of light that rises from the sun’s north pole and curves toward Venus is inexplicably draining the star of power. According to scientists, an “instant ice age” is all but inevitable within a few decades. All the other stars in proximity to the sun seem to be suffering with the same affliction—except Tau Ceti. An unwilling last-minute replacement as part of a three-person mission heading to Tau Ceti in hopes of finding an answer, Ryland finds himself awakening from an induced coma on the spaceship with two dead crewmates and a spotty memory. With time running out for humankind, he discovers an alien spacecraft in the vicinity of his ship with a strange traveler on a similar quest. Although hard scientific speculation fuels the storyline, the real power lies in the many jaw-dropping plot twists, the relentless tension, and the extraordinary dynamic between Ryland and the alien (whom he nicknames Rocky because of its carapace of oxidized minerals and metallic alloy bones). Readers may find themselves consuming this emotionally intense and thematically profound novel in one stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed sitting.
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13520-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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