An inventive tribal tale hampered by problematic racial attitudes and extraneous details.
In this novel, a young man in a future Pacific Northwest finds his purpose in a homoerotic culture that combines Native American–derived spirituality with militarism.
The first book in this series, Paradigm Lost: Jamari and the Manhood Rites (2015), introduced the Elk Creek Tribe in the state of Lincoln, once southwestern Oregon. It’s 2115, 75 years after the Fall of 2040. Jamari, a young white man—his blond hair and blue eyes are unusual among the Native American and Pacific Islander–looking Tribe—begins to find his place. Now about 17, Jamari decides it’s time to leave childhood behind, meaning he must prove his maturity. In his society, men and women live strictly apart, coming together only to mate (for most, reluctantly and as a duty owed the Tribe). Women raise the children until the boys are old enough to join all-male, age-segregated hearths. Young men are trained according to an organized, hierarchical system that includes regular sexual contact with older “Night Studies” mentors. Although the Tribe’s religious customs incorporate many traditional Native American practices, such as sage smudging (purifying a space with the smoke of sacred plants), Gnosticism is important as well. Jamari considers himself Christian because “I like to be on the winning team…the Christian God is the one who threw down every other over the millenniums.” Jamari discovers more about the Tribe, its lands, and its history and begins learning how to be a shaman, showing remarkable aptitude. A long, dangerous expedition tests his skills and commitment, earning respect from others and allowing him to prove his worth to the group. Speculative fiction often provides a way to question contemporary mores by upending them, and Rowe (Paradigm Lost: Eros Times, 2017, etc.) certainly accomplishes this. In his world, “straight” means “homosexual,” and heterosexuality is a problem: a character who prefers women “faces a significant challenge in molding himself into the tribal culture. We’ve been working with him to help him fight it.” Also thought-provoking is how the author mixes genres in unexpected ways, blending sci-fi with erotica, military life, and philosophical and spiritual musings, although his tone can be rather dry: “Anyone who interacts sexually with [uncircumcised] Kenny will need to be willing to allow Kenny the time to take some extra steps in establishing and maintaining cleanliness,” instructs a mentor. Unfortunately, the many unnecessary details concerning logistics, sightseeing, and work assignments slow down the story. Great attention is given to militia ranks and everyone’s physical appearance, whether this contributes to the plot or not. In addition, the tale’s racial views are disconcerting. For example, the Tribe has no African-Americans because the founding members selected no one from the inner city (apparently the only place blacks live), adopting the rule “No Asians. No Irish. No Russians. No Africans.” The almost total absence of women, whose lives are a mystery, is also a drawback, making it difficult to see how this society works as a totality.
An inventive tribal tale hampered by problematic racial attitudes and extraneous details.Pub Date: April 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5434-1576-6
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2017
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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