A delectably zany SF tale.
After an apocalypse, the last surviving people—and one aging, flatulent pooch—embark on a journey to save humankind’s future in this dystopian novel.
Humanity faced catastrophe when aliens called the Kenmoreans invaded Earth in search of tungsten, leaving behind nothing but scorched earth. Sure, the aliens may have been eventually defeated by a virus, but now the few human survivors have little to celebrate. Among them are American President Morton Buchanan, slowly losing his mind in the ruins of the White House, and reclusive SF writer Ira Hunter, who lives on Gall Island, off the coast of Maine, and whose only company is his older dog, Eve. (“One huge benefit of living a solitary life on a deserted island was the unintentional preparation for any impending apocalypse…the arrival of a hostile alien population, the outbreak of a calamitous war, and the ruination resulting from a rampant alien virus…well, these things have little-to-no impact on a recluse’s life.”) Then Zen Buddhist nun Sarah Pretlusky unexpectedly knocks on Ira’s door to say—to his dismay and utter surprise—that she has not only read all of his books, but has found the answer to humankind’s survival in them as well. Her startling statements feel even more real when CIA agents show up on a ship that carries Buchanan and an alien who purports to be 3 million years old, spouting a deranged plan to save (or possibly destroy) Earth for future generations. What’s an SF author to do but join the eclectic group? As the ragtag band of disparate heroes goes on a voyage that will determine humanity’s destiny, Ira realizes that his words have more potency than he ever knew.
This novel is ostensibly written by mysterious SF writer Sumac, who supposedly disappeared in the 1980s, leaving behind nothing but disorganized, handwritten manuscripts that are slowly being put together by his fans in the Sam Sumac Association. The group also presents readers with the author’s playlist of mostly blues songs for this story. The result here is an over-the-top, funny narrative full of zingers. The tale offers a hodgepodge of characters and threads that include Buddhist sayings, courageous seabirds and dogs, lots of tantric sex, a glacier in Iceland, Mary Shelley, and a couple of effective love stories. The book examines the power of storytelling in an oddball way that somehow works in the end. In addition, the cast is intriguing and often amusing. During Sarah’s first meeting with Ira, she asserts: “Now Mr. Hunter, if you think I’m going to be acting like the Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine from the television show, Kung Fu, you’re in for some disappointments. Nope, I am still a living, breathing woman, not some kind of a superhero. And, right now, I’m as cold as shit. Can I please come in?” This slightly nonsensical but fun romp is as wacky as Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as ineffable as Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, and as American-centric as the film Independence Day.
A delectably zany SF tale.Pub Date: April 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-977253-72-9
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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