A complicated dystopian political thriller enhanced by lively prose.
In Joseph’s near-future dystopian thriller, an economist, a soldier, and a diplomat circle each other as political tensions rise.
About 25 years after a cataclysmic war, Alex Tashen, an economist with a tragic backstory and many secrets, embarks on a dangerous mission. The Allied Nations, governed and protected by the TaskForce Institute, aims to protect its citizens from the disease and violence apparently wrought by the guizi, or refusé—people who inhabit their rival nation, the Federation, and spread disease and commit crimes, according to Allied propaganda. Alex, who’s secretly a refusé, remains hidden in the Allied Nations, due to her adoptive father’s genetic research, which allows her to remain undetected during regular genetic screenings. Alex impresses TaskForce Kommandant Suzanne Burton and infiltrates the Allied Nations political framework. The economist, who’s sure that her father is behind recent anti-Allied cyberattacks, ingratiates herself with the Kommandant and Suzanne’s adopted sons, Eric Burton and Strav Beki. Eric is a disgraced former TaskForce director and Suzanne’s younger cousin, who wants to bring Strav on his new mission as a consultant, but Suzanne places him with Alex instead, forcing the three into an uneasy alliance—one that’s tinged with romantic and sexual tension. Using alternating third-person perspectives, Joseph shows how Alex, Eric, and Strav each work toward their disparate goals. The novel’s worldbuilding is complex; the political system in which the characters work, and are complicit in, is a fascist dystopia with troubling views on nationality, abortion, and sexual assault that the novel doesn’t satisfyingly confront. Still, the skillful writing makes the book a worthy read; Joseph’s writing can get technical when the characters talk politics or economics, but it also has beautiful passages: “They belonged to a universe out of rhythm, a vindictive place without music.” Strav’s dialogue is laced with references to English literature, especially the works of William Shakespeare, characterizing him as something of a tragic hero.
A complicated dystopian political thriller enhanced by lively prose.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781684632626
Page Count: 328
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2024
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
