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
The novel’s voice remains engaging, and its spirit resilient, against some staggeringly tough times.
Amid the dystopian collapse of the near future, a musician embarks on a quixotic voyage from the shore of Lake Superior.
There’s both a playfulness and a seriousness of purpose to the latest from the Minnesota novelist, a spirit of whimsy that keeps hope flickering even in times of darkest despair. Things have gone dangerously dark along the North Shore, and likely for the country as a whole. A comet is coming that augurs ill, a pandemic has wreaked havoc with the public health, an autocratic despot and raging populism have made books and booksellers all but treasonous. There are corpses floating in the lake from climate change, and there are numerous instances of people swallowing something that kills them; the dead are generally considered seekers of whatever comes next (which has to be better than this) rather than suicides. As narrator Rainy sets the scene, “The world was so old and exhausted that many now saw it as a dying great-grand on a surgical table, body decaying from use and neglect, mind fading down to a glow.” Rainy is a bass player in bar bands, a jack of a variety of trades, and devoted husband to Lark, a bibliophile who runs the local bookstore. Before the collapse of the publishing industry, a cult author had been set to publish a volume with the same title as this novel, and finding one of the few advance copies has been like a holy grail for Lark. Then a copy finds her, courtesy of a fugitive pursued by the powers that be, and whatever tranquility Lark and Rainy had achieved is shattered. Rainy takes to the lake to escape the fugitive’s pursuers and reunite with Lark. He experiences a variety of hardship, challenge, and adventure, yet somehow lives to tell the tale that is this novel.
The novel’s voice remains engaging, and its spirit resilient, against some staggeringly tough times.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780802162939
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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
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