Jenkins aims for Neverwhere by way of Douglas Adams, but the charm isn't there.
Graphic novel and video game writer Jenkins (Fairy Quest, 2013, etc.) makes his novel debut with a story of an ordinary man whose life is upended by a theft from a magical museum.
Wil Morgan is a private investigator, and he hates his life. The former detail is revealed on page 16; the latter is clear from page 1, and how. Given that Morgan's problems include things like existential martyrdom over coffee-size naming conventions and how bored he is at work, it's tough to summon sympathy for even his legitimate woes, like his mother's death. But never fear, the plot will wrench Morgan from his doldrums, à la Alice in Wonderland; instead of a White Rabbit we have Mr. Dinsdale, a cartoonish eccentric who bullies Morgan into finding and recovering a box of levity (the opposite of gravity) stolen from Dinsdale's Curioddity Museum. From here, logic leaves the story—literally, as Morgan's arc requires him to embrace “un-looking” to see the absurd and perform intentionally pointless acts in the name of whimsy. Morgan meets a suitably wacky-but-beautiful woman, Lucy, to further transform his life with the power of love and conspiracy theories. Lucy, content to play self-described “groovy assistant” to Morgan's unlikely hero, primarily contributes interjections of “epic” and “major fail.” There's also SARA, a smartphone operating system with attitude and ex machina powers. Thanks to lamp-shaded serendipity, Morgan need do little actual investigating but is carried by coincidence to a showdown with villainous Marcus James, a product pitchman selling mediocrity. Throughout, Jenkins makes sure that his most colorful characters—similes and metaphors—get plenty of exposure. Morgan's unexpectedly touching reconciliation with his accountant father provides a bright spot in the silliness.
Jenkins aims for Neverwhere by way of Douglas Adams, but the charm isn't there.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-02615-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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