A sleek sci-fi novel packed to the brim with rewarding surprises.
This charged sci-fi debut finds the U.S. military desperate to outmaneuver a strange, violent force of alien invaders in the American Southwest.
In 2033, Eileen and her husband, U.S. Army Capt. Lucas “Hopper” Phillips, are driving back to Fort Bliss, near the border of Texas and New Mexico. It’s their fifth wedding anniversary, and they’ve parked near the bank of a creek to share a tender moment. Suddenly, a shock wave rolls across the desert, throwing their car into the creek; Phillips escapes alive, but Eileen doesn’t. It turns out that the shock wave came from an explosion in New Mexico that destroyed more than 120 square kilometers and killed an estimated 30,000 people. The blast area is soon engulfed by raging storms that come and go with odd regularity. From a command center under Fort Bliss, Gen. Shadley Pierce starts aiming soldiers and weaponry at this troubling “Zone,” where no radio communication is possible—only for invisible alien forces to destroy them. When Operation Hail Mary launches to capture an alien and glean details about their technology, the grieving Phillips is part of it. With the miraculous help of a telepath named Dell Thompson, Phillips survives and succeeds. But the alien detainee, Reckston, eventually proves that all of the military’s assumptions about the Zone are false. Winters, in his debut, whips up strong, swift, imaginative currents that are tough to resist. Densely plotted scenes stitch together nicely, offering alternative perspectives on major events. His entertaining characters are also psychologically intriguing; President Andrew Wellington, for example, reveals that he wants a military victory in the Zone because he believes it will help him get re-elected for a third term. Winters loves futuristic gadgetry, and employs many great ideas, such as BRAVE, “short for Biometric Rhythm Adapting Vector Enhancer,” which “enhance[s] how someone thinks and feels.” Occasional typos mar the flow at times (“Fill free to answer any questions”). However, the dialogue, right to the end, is fantastic, as when the maniacal Gen. Pierce says, “World peace is just around the corner.”
A sleek sci-fi novel packed to the brim with rewarding surprises.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1480172593
Page Count: 274
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.
Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.
The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-88743-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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