In veteran writer-editor Silverberg's (The Mountains of Majipoor, 1995, etc.) 23rd century, Earth faces terminal decline, so it makes a last effort to send forth a starship to locate and colonize new worlds. Wotan, commanded by an elected (and never named) year-captain, contains 50 men and women, plus vast genetic stores. Blind, beautiful Noelle will maintain communications with Earth via her telepathic link with her twin sister, Yvonne, who remains behind. Some months later, Noelle reports communication difficulties caused by some sort of static in the nospace continuum through which the ship speeds. Still, they reach the seemingly habitable Planet A, only to be driven off by a psychic field that induces uncontrollable terror. The year-captain is elected for a second and a third term, and accepts that he's been given a permanent job. As the ship heads for Planet B, the link with Earth fails completely; perhaps the static is caused by entities living in nospace. Noelle reluctantly agrees to try to contact these hypothetical beings—and discovers them to be stars! Finally, the stars, the crew of Wotan, and the entire population of Earth join together in a joyous psychic communion. Planet B proves unsuitable; the search continues. Another polished and agreeable presentation, constrained by its overly familiar scenario; the present-tense narrative doesn't help—though some sparks of originality would've worked wonders.
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-553-10264-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
Irredeemable in any world, real or virtual.
In this cyberpunk fiction debut, a massively popular online game has real-world consequences.
Ashley Akachi is a mixed-race woman who’s known as “Ashura the Terrible” to millions of fans of Infinite Game, which is watched around the world. In a near-future Florida that’s half drowned by rising sea levels, she sits inside a haptic chamber that converts her movements into gameplay in the ultraviolent competition. Former NFL player Kluwe (Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies, 2013) describes the game’s mechanics at length, at times giving the book the feel of watching someone else play a video game. (The game’s racist and misogynist online message boards also feature prominently.) Eventually, Ash uncovers a vast conspiracy involving not only Infinite Game, but also her love interest, Hamlin, who’s hiding a secret of his own. Unfortunately, there’s not enough space in this brief review to examine everything that’s obnoxious or distasteful in this novel, from its opening bullet-point infodump, lazily passed off as worldbuilding, to its eye-rolling last line. One may wonder if any women were involved in this book’s publication in any meaningful way. Only a male author could believe a woman thinks about “dicks” this often; when facing gender inequality, Ash huffs, “Must be nice to have a dick”; before castrating a would-be rapist, she scoffs, “You thought your dick made you a man? You’ll never be a man again.” Characters' attacks on Ash are all viciously gender-specific; in addition to being threatened with rape throughout, she's repeatedly called “slut,” “whore,” and “cunt.” Meanwhile, Ash herself reads like an unintentional parody of an empowered woman; she leers suggestively at a woman’s behind and then laments her small bust size, at length, before deciding “boobs are overrated.” At the book’s climax, Ash thinks that she’s “so tired of shitty men and their shitty dreams.” After reading this, readers will surely feel the same.
Irredeemable in any world, real or virtual.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20393-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Well written, but does not really rise much above the rest of the teeming post-apocalyptic pack.
The first in a post-pandemic trilogy.
The midwife of the title is an obstetric nurse in San Francisco when an unknown disease strikes; it kills men but is more devastating to women. For women giving birth, it is a virtual death sentence for both mother and child. The nurse falls ill herself but ultimately wakes alone in a hospital bed, surrounded by bodies and her doctor boyfriend either dead himself or long gone. After an unpleasant year spent in a sparsely populated city sprinkled with male predators, she decides to move on in search of something better. Disguising herself as a man and taking many names to protect herself both physically and emotionally from anyone getting too close, she travels across the country, quietly offering birth control to the enslaved women she encounters and defending herself from scavengers and potential rapists. After a troubled interlude with a young Mormon couple fleeing their increasingly unstable community, she eventually finds her way to a small settlement on what remains of a military base, where she devotes herself to passing on her skills and attempting to deliver a surviving baby. Similarly to The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power, the book has a framing device set generations later in that same settlement, where the midwife’s journals are kept and she is venerated as a sacred figure. But confusingly, the story is not solely drawn from her journals; with no explanation, an omniscient narrator occasionally jumps in to reveal information that neither the midwife nor the future residents of the town could possibly know. While knowing the fates of the characters who pass out of the midwife’s life provides closure, it also undercuts the integrity of the story. The somewhat abrupt ending also feels somewhat unsatisfying; after a leisurely (if disturbing) account of the days and months of the midwife’s travels, the author suddenly packs years of her life into the last few pages.
Well written, but does not really rise much above the rest of the teeming post-apocalyptic pack.Pub Date: June 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3911-0
Page Count: 300
Publisher: 47North
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2019
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