A complex but rewarding conclusion to a high-density cyber–SF tale.
In the conclusion of Manney’s SF trilogy, digital and cybernetic versions of a dead genius must unravel a civil war, widespread additional chaos, and threats to his loved ones.
Newcomers to this transhumanist/cyberpunk saga should know that familiarity with its backstory is a minimum system requirement. Protagonist Peter Bernhardt was a nanotech bioengineer whose inventions resulted in medical breakthroughs; he later fought against the Phoenix Club, an evil cabal full of rich, powerful members intent on societal control. The original Peter died, but he lives on in variant high-tech duplicates employing software, robotics, and biotech; some are afflicted with corrupted coding and possible false-memory implants. As “Thomas Paine,” he was a freedom-loving political revolutionary; as “Major Tom,” he’s a feared military AI fighting a new civil war that’s currently being won by the reactionary, feudalist Southern States of America, which has a slavery-based economy. Another version of Peter is peddled to the public as a sham religious messiah. The various offshoots of the original Peter unite and join with old allies aboard the warship Zumwalt to engage in decisive battle with Peter’s enemies, including his megalomaniacal ex–best friend, Carter Potsdam, and Phoenix Club elite Josiah Brant—who also both transcended mortality to become Artificial Human Intelligences. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is watching and waiting to turn the situation to its advantage. Can the assorted Peters trust anyone—even themselves? In the hands of a less skilled storyteller, this material might have turned into a static, formulaic cyberpunk chase in the vein of William Gibson’s 1984 genre classic Neuromancer. Manney, even when dealing with numerous fractured/remade personalities—and there are arguably far too many—keeps all the plates spinning and makes all her characters distinct individuals. She also manages repeated, virtuosic narrative flourishes along the way; for instance, if you thought Stanley Kubrick’s killing of HAL-9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey was the ultimate in machine-life death, think again. She also insinuates numerous cultural references, especially to pop music, in a particularly pleasing manner; a playlist follows the finale.
A complex but rewarding conclusion to a high-density cyber–SF tale.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-50-394850-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: 47North
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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