An entertaining speculative work that powerfully reflects on faith and philosophy.
Two SF novellas consider how an artificial intelligence and an isolated people might independently construct spirituality.
In The God Question, scientists have at last succeeded in creating a self-aware “class one” computer with a superhuman intellect so powerful that it’s been outlawed. But 49-year-old computer scientist Stephen Kendrick gets hold of the system’s untraceable source code, converts a class two supercomputer to a class one, and decides to ask it the titular “God question”—whether there’s any evidence for God’s existence. However, the operating system repeatedly shuts itself down and erases all traces of itself, determined not to answer. In the end, the bigger question is why Stephen is asking a machine about faith. The Galapagos Colony, set in 2474, concerns the planet Arcadia, which has been isolated for more than two centuries after an unknown disease killed all the adults, leaving children with simplified technology and knowledge. Twenty-eight-year-old Matias Silva is sent to investigate, and he’s stunned by Arcadia’s beauty but doesn’t understand its peoples’ spiritual philosophy of being guided by a moment of intuition, or a “true point.” He dismisses their beliefs and makes a choice that forever changes the planet in ways he must painfully grapple with later. In his first SF book, Freeman capitalizes on the freedom afforded by speculative fiction to thoughtfully consider philosophical and ethical conundrums. The skillfully written stories gain strength from their multilayered characterization. Both Stephen and Matias must confront what they’re really looking for in the choices they’ve made; in both cases, their questions offer them—and readers—richer food for thought than their answers. Freeman’s monochrome illustrations are reminiscent of steel engravings, and the old-fashioned technique provides an intriguing contrast to the advanced futures described in the tales.
An entertaining speculative work that powerfully reflects on faith and philosophy.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7344384-4-4
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Hampshire House Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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
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