A fast-paced, riveting, medically driven tale.
A surgeon fights to recover a vaccine for a virus the American government may have created in this third installment of a thriller series.
Dr. David Aaronson, who’s wanted by various United States agencies, is hiding in Fallon, Nevada. Though a small town of only 8,000 residents, it seemingly faces an epidemic when quite a few locals die after coughing up blood. But a mysterious man has shocking information for David. The U.S. government supposedly released lethal virus “CoVid23” in Fallon with the intent of testing a vaccine. Behind this deplorable plan is Col. Jonathan Neville, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency director. He claims China weaponized CoVid23 for an imminent biological strike against the U.S., but David believes this virus is homegrown. Neville, who’s chummy with powerful sorts, including the president, soon learns that Fallon’s town surgeon is piecing together the director’s scheme. Neville has people in Nevada to keep an eye on David and, if need be, to eliminate him. As the “supervirus” attacks multiple nations, David makes a daring attempt to get the vaccine Neville is harboring before many more die. Van Anderson quickly sets an unwavering narrative momentum with concise writing and succinct chapters. The subplots are gripping; David, for example, falls for local woman Nova Featherstone, who may be infected and whose murderous, drug-trafficking father poses a serious threat. The story is plausible as well, as the author, a former heart surgeon, vividly details medical procedures and describes a U.S. that’s simultaneously battling Covid-19. While David and others are often in peril, the final act, during which he tries infiltrating a secure lab, is particularly exciting. Despite copious references to earlier installments, this engaging book will appeal to new and returning readers alike.
A fast-paced, riveting, medically driven tale. (dedication, author's notes, acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9907597-6-8
Page Count: 316
Publisher: White Light Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.
When a bunch of corporate assholes mark their planet for destruction, a garage band of colonists must defend their home world with the power of rock.
Slightly sidestepping his frenetic litRPG—literary role-playing game—doorstoppers, here Dinniman takes on capitalism, propaganda, xenophobia, and violence as entertainment. Thankfully for readers, it’s all wrapped in the usual profane, adolescent humor, and SF readers will have a ball. A couple of hundred years after they left Earth, the inhabitants of the interstellar colony of New Sonora weren’t expecting much in the way of new threats, especially after a mysterious illness killed almost everyone between the ages of 30 and 60. That disaster left only the young and the old on the populated planet, where farming is enabled by highly accelerated AI and people are generally cool with each other. But when drummer Oliver Lewis stumbles across a foul-mouthed killer mech piloted by a child, he realizes that something’s definitely fishy. Earth, it seems, has classified the New Sonorans as non-human and scheduled their destruction as a paid, five-day combat game. Apex Industries, led by lead mercenary Eli Opel, has reverse-engineered Ender’s Game and is turning loose its players with real bullets and bombs on the population of New Sonora. The resistance is a weird bunch, led by proto-slacker Oliver; his little sister, Lulu; and his ex-girlfriend, documentary filmmaker and burgeoning revolutionary Rosita Zapatero, as well as the other members of Oliver’s band, the Rhythm Mafia. Thankfully, they also have Roger, the last functioning AI on the planet, though Oliver’s grandfather permanently programmed it to nannybot mode as a dying joke. Call the book overlong—the battle scenes often feel like watching someone play a videogame—but the humor and the execution are cutting without being mean and there’s almost always a point.
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9780593820308
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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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