A dense, faith-based journey that moves in unexpected ways.
A spiritual SF novel about a girl’s special relationship.
Bergen presents a follow-up to The Land of the Butterflies (2009). As the story opens, God tells Tara,a 13-year-old girl growing up in 1960s Quesnel, Canada, that she’ll soon meet a new friend, whom she will instantly recognize. Tara is used to hearing from God directly, and trusts his assurances; sure enough, she meets a man named David. He appears human, but he’s an alien from a planet called the Land of the Butterflies, where residents are called Muki. David is on a mission to help determine whether Earth should be destroyed for not correctly carrying out the will of God. The Land of the Butterflies is an extremely strict place with many specific rules and rituals, especially regarding reproduction. The Muki also must adhere to what they see as the will of God and follow a religion that’s essentially a form of Earth’s Christianity. David winds up falling in love with Tara, whom he eventually affectionately calls “Littl’un,” though a relationship with her is forbidden by the culture of his world. The stage is set for an unusual story of anguish and soul-searching that doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. Its characters express conservative ideas regarding religion and government, as when David notes that “democracy was designed on the idea that righteousness was popular, which was far from correct.” In a similar manner, Tara equates commitment to God with enslavement. It’s heavy, thought-provoking fare that effectively includes surprising, lighter moments, such as an explanation of Tara’s love of walking on stilts. The prose isn’t always especially revelatory, though; in particular, the word loveis so overused that it ceases to have much emotional effect: “He just loved me with his whole soul. I could not have loved him more.” Taken as a whole, though, it’s an intriguing exploration of what the concept of God’s will really means.
A dense, faith-based journey that moves in unexpected ways.Pub Date: May 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-955177-76-4
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Primix Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2022
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
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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