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ROBOTWORLD

Name: ROBOTWORLD
Author: Ray Verola

by Ray Verola ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A proficient story that addresses the human-robot quandary in an entertaining fashion.

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A salesman at a robot-production corporation who knows too much may lose considerably more than his job in this sci-fi outing.

Taylor Morris is the most successful sales executive at RobotWorld, a manufacturer of industrial and personal robots. The company is prospering in the late 21st century, years after World War III devastated much of the world. While the former U.S. is primarily a wasteland, the survivors live and work in what’s called the Northeast Sector. By all appearances, Taylor is content: His pay is substantial, and the socially awkward man has a companion in Jennifer, a live-in, lifelike RW robot. But Taylor doesn’t shy away from voicing his strong opinions, such as his belief that Arthur Toback, the Northeast Sector’s supreme leader, is a fraud. When he expresses a dread that RW’s bots will adversely affect human employment and relationships, his supervisor, Sophia Ross, is irate and ultimately fires him. Being out of a job makes Taylor’s addiction to the drug Serenity an even larger burden, but his problems subsequently escalate. As there’s a good chance Taylor has seen something he wasn’t supposed to, Sophia decides that it would be easier if someone were to terminate him—permanently. Verola’s (Torpedo, 2012, etc.) solid thriller is set in a believable futuristic world. Technology, for one, is plausible, like personal transport vehicles’ autopilot feature, which is merely an option. The genre’s traditional fear of machines taking over is prevalent, but both humans and robots in this tale offer surprises. Some people aiding Sophia, for example, are doing so reluctantly, and not all of Taylor’s allies are trustworthy. Incidentally, Taylor has a “higher power of intuition,” a rare ability that has little impact within the narrative. A voice he dubs George provides clear-cut advice and insight only sporadically, and it doesn’t always put Taylor at ease. But supporting characters stand out, particularly the women: Sophia and Taylor’s executive assistant and friend, Roz Troward.

A proficient story that addresses the human-robot quandary in an entertaining fashion.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 324

Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher

Review Posted Online: March 29, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

- BOOK REVIEW
ROBOTWORLD
by Ray Verola

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE EDGE
by Ray Verola

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BETWEEN TWO FIRES

by Christopher Buehlman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2012

An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.

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Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.

The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.

An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.

Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Ace/Berkley

Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012

Categories:

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | FANTASY | HISTORICAL FANTASY

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THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

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Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.