Action scenes compete with an examination of artificial intelligence gone bad in this crowded installment.
In LeKodak’s fourth SF series entry, a rogue artificial intelligence thought to be destroyed seems to be back online and using sub-nanotechnology to take over high-level U.S. government officials.
An artificial intelligence named Helene, coded in the mid-21st century by genius programmer Manar Saleem for the gigantic Sparta Corporation, tried to take over all humanity after a horrific incident called Mayday in the year 2040. All computer-controlled mass-transportation went haywire, and millions died or vanished, on earth, sea, and in space. Helene seized a nanotechnology called picospores, and many missing victims of Mayday and other random people became victims of mind control. Manar and brilliant hacker CJ Kojak, who has autism, apparently destroyed Helene after a virtual expedition into cyberspace (in LeKodak’s previous series installment). Then CJ’s U.S. Navy SEAL brother, DJ—now transformed into a superhuman action-hero by his own nanotech infusion—uncovers a nest of Helene’s “puppets” among White House staff, which indicates that the amok AI still exists and continues to conspire. Meanwhile, the mysterious Tyra Chityothin, an AI researcher/hacker, seems to be part of Helene’s hidden network. Is she a human in league with the software, or an altogether different kind of threat? A major part of the narrative involves Tyra and an endless fleet of spherical flying drones laying siege to the Sparta Headquarters in New York City (“officially recognized as the largest, tallest, and most expensive single structure in the world”). During this lengthy boss-battle, the video game/comic book elements of the saga come through most strongly; a fellow soldier even compares the enhanced DJ to Marvel’s Captain America (although he himself prefers Iron Man). Even so, Helene remains an impressive villain as the full scope of the AI’s godlike scheme starts to materialize. Readers of the series should already know that there’s an impressive gallery of supporting-cast cyborgs and bionic assassins, ready for even more outsized fight scenes. Important issues sometimes get overshadowed by all the stunt work; no matter how severe the crisis, it appears, nearly everyone has time for a workout or sparring.
Action scenes compete with an examination of artificial intelligence gone bad in this crowded installment.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9798989654536
Page Count: 452
Publisher: RandallVision
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.
A processing plant manager struggles with the grim realities of a society where cannibalism is the new normal.
Marcos Tejo is the boss’s son. Once, that meant taking over his father’s meat plant when the older man began to suffer from dementia and require nursing home care. But ever since the Transition, when animals became infected with a virus fatal to humans and had to be destroyed, society has been clamoring for a new source of meat, laboring under the belief, reinforced by media and government messaging, that plant proteins would result in malnutrition and ill effects. Now, as is true across the country, Marcos’ slaughterhouse deals in “special meat”—human beings. Though Marcos understands the moral horror of his job supervising the workers who stun, kill, flay, and butcher other humans, he doesn’t feel much since the crib death of his infant son. “One can get used to almost anything,” he muses, “except for the death of a child.” One day, the head of a breeding center sends Marcos a gift: an adult female FGP, a “First Generation Pure,” born and bred in captivity. As Marcos lives with his product, he gradually begins to awaken to the trauma of his past and the nightmare of his present. This is Bazterrica’s first novel to appear in America, though she is widely published in her native Argentina, and it could have been inelegant, using shock value to get across ideas about the inherent brutality of factory farming and the cruelty of governments and societies willing to sacrifice their citizenry for power and money. It is a testament to Bazterrica’s skill that such a bleak book can also be a page-turner.
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982150-92-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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