Despite a few missteps, an involving, tense, and visceral near-future thriller.
In this debut sci-fi novel, a doctor stumbles on a government conspiracy involving human experimentation.
In 2087, American society has been changed by the Great Purge—a temporary collapse of the social safety net orchestrated by anti-government forces—and an electromagnetic pulse called the Blackout that wiped out all digitally recorded learning. Today, few own books or are even literate, instead using screens that display “simplified and dumbed down Gliffs,” part pictograph, part acronym. Nearly everyone, in the Eastern United States at least, uses an implanted Atman approved by the Bureau of Wellness. Dr. Joe Barnes is one of the few to prefer a handheld device, suspicious of how the implant might affect the body’s electrical currents. When patients at Joe’s hospital start dying suddenly, he’s compelled to investigate, and soon turns up troubling clues. Though aided by his irascible elderly mentor as well as his best friend, a detective, Joe runs up against a flinty hospital bureaucracy backed by powerful forces. Yet the hospital also is caring for his wife, Mary, pregnant after many years of trying. Joe must use a paper dossier that he can barely read to understand—and try to stop—horrifying medical experiments on human subjects linked to World War II atrocities. In his novel, Augenstein draws readers in with Joe’s narrative voice; he’s a decent, good-hearted, hardworking man who is determined to do right by his patients. The historical basis for the tale’s medical horrors lends them an appalling credence, underscored by glimpses of a debased, cruel popular culture as seen in a reality show that’s slightly reminiscent of Terry Southern’s The Magic Christian (1969). But some plot elements don’t seem well thought out; in 68 years, will people still chuckle about patients who sexually harass nurses or have “marijuana misdemeanors”? It seems odd that paper, seemingly indispensable in a Blackout, would disappear so fast. And naming Joe’s “sidekick nurse” “Betty Bathory” signals what should be a surprise twist.
Despite a few missteps, an involving, tense, and visceral near-future thriller.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Pandamoon Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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