A rollicking SF romp with cinematic action, entertaining banter, and an appealingly scruffy protagonist.
A wisecracking superhero battles supervillains in a militarized near future in Shokeir’s fantasy adventure.
In the 22nd century, the Western Union is an alliance of North American and European nations fighting a seemingly endless war against terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East. Slate is a genetically engineered supersoldier who’s accidentally brought out of hibernation at a Western Union training base in the Sahara. Equipped with an unremovable silver helmet, he doesn’t need to eat, drink, or breathe—but he does seem compelled to offer snarky commentary in a whiny, “constipated” tone: “I expected to be tortured, not massaged by Fabio,” he says to a man who’s pistol-whipping him for information. Slate also has superhuman strength as well as the abilities to fly and shoot lightning from his fingertips, which enables him to slaughter a group of mercenaries who attack the base. He embarks on a journey across the desert toward Cairo, accompanied by a pickup posse that includes Gilda Plato, a tough military cadet; Victoria Zaidi, the heir to a weapons manufacturer who’s searching for her father’s assassin; and the flaky Gen. Eisenhorn. They take on militias, missile-armed attack drones, and “pinocchios”—spiderlike mobile bombs that latch onto victims and explode. The group’s odyssey coalesces into a mission against Cloak, a criminal organization led by other supersoldiers; these include Repulsa, who telekinetically pummels opponents; Sandtrap, a hulking figure who magnetizes metals; and Houdini, an arrogant sorehead who teleports and says things like “Silence, you swine!” Shokeir’s yarn feels like an insouciant version of an X-Men comic with a touch of cynical politics, as the heroes disparage the Western Union’s neocolonialism while also reluctantly fighting for it. There’s plenty of well-staged, arresting mayhem written in fast-paced, supple prose: “The flight attendant wore an expression of simple shock as she realized an arm was now going through her chest.” Shokeir effectively leavens the carnage with bits of humor, resulting in a nifty, energetic page-turner.
A rollicking SF romp with cinematic action, entertaining banter, and an appealingly scruffy protagonist.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 331
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
