Third in the trilogy (Starseed, 1991, etc.) about the Stardancers, human-alien symbiotes who are able to live unprotected in space, and who can share a mingled consciousness as and when they wish. This time, Cape Cod writer Rhea Paixao is devastated when her husband, Rand Porter, decides to accept the position of Resident Shaper for music/dance productions aboard the huge, luxury Shimizu Hotel in High Earth Orbit. Rhea, however, having agreed to live in space for a trial period, grows unhappy and homesick, and has an affair with one of Shimizu's employees. Meanwhile, the five richest and most powerful people on Earth are hatching a plotbarely hinted at in the narrativeto destroy the Stardancers, whose benevolent activities they regard as inimical to human development. A handful of telepathic non-Stardancers, though kidnapped by the conspirators, manage to alert the Stardancers just in time to avoid disaster. And finally the Stardancers arrange for everybody on Earth to gain the ability to fly and live unprotected in space. Agreeable, sometimes. But it would have been far better had the plot been properly articulated and integrated into the mundane life-in-space/art-in-space goings-on.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-441-00209-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
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
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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