An uncomplicated but well-rendered exploration of a familiar body-switch premise.
Aliens offer an average guy in Oregon a way to avoid death by transferring his consciousness to a female body in Denton’s debut SF novel.
Scott Michael Evers was raised by an alcoholic father and became a loutish, single, saloon-centered adult, prone to settling conflicts with his fists. He has one extraordinary distinction, though: As a boy, he was abducted by aliens—the big-eyed, inquisitive Sroans, whose saucer crashed at Roswell in 1947. Off-world,they monitor Scott remotely via implants. When Scott develops stage 4 cancer and stoically prepares to die in 2005, his extraterrestrial guardian angels reveal themselves with an urgent offer. A despondent Ukrainian woman whom the Sroan were studying has just shot herself in the head, and the aliens have the ability, via superscience, to transfer Scott’s mind to her body, enabling him to live and remain in close proximity to his small extended family; his best pal, Dan; and the few others he cares about. He accepts the Sroans’ offer, but as Jody, she encounters difficulty when she tries to convince skeptics that she’s been remade. She also has trouble adapting to her new situation; for one thing, men now treat her as a sex object—just as Scott used to do when he inhabited a male body. Meanwhile, government and military operatives notice the alien meddling and decide to take action. The body-switch gimmick was a standby in comedy literature even before it became a Hollywood rom-com plot. Here, Denton straightforwardly explores this setup in an SF context using the same sort of relatable, plainspoken language that genre maestro Richard Matheson employed for the plight of his protagonist in the 1956 novel The Shrinking Man. Denton doesn’t dazzle with wordplay, but he manages to eschew absurd jokiness. Along the way, he shows a generosity of spirit to the various characters, even the putative bad guys. That said, some readers may be disappointed the novel doesn’t delve more deeply into feminist themes and questions of identity and transgender politics, as SF virtuosos have done with similar material.
An uncomplicated but well-rendered exploration of a familiar body-switch premise.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 514
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.
This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery.
Gideon Nav, a foundling of mysterious antecedents, was not so much adopted as indentured by the Ninth House, a nearly extinct noble necromantic house. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to leave the place where everyone despises her and join the Cohort, the imperial military. But after her most recent escape attempt fails, she finally gets the opportunity to depart the planet. The heir and secret ruler of the Ninth House, the ruthless and prodigiously talented bone adept Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chooses Gideon to serve her as cavalier primary, a sworn bodyguard and aide de camp, when the undying Emperor summons Harrow to compete for a position as a Lyctor, an elite, near-immortal adviser. The decaying Canaan House on the planet of the absent Emperor holds dark secrets and deadly puzzles as well as a cheerfully enigmatic priest who provides only scant details about the nature of the competition...and at least one person dedicated to brutally slaughtering the competitors. Unsure of how to mix with the necromancers and cavaliers from the other Houses, Gideon must decide whom among them she can trust—and her doubts include her own necromancer, Harrow, whom she’s loathed since childhood. This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences.
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31319-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.
Having survived a disastrous deep space mission in 2038, three asteroid miners plan a return to their abandoned ship to save two colleagues who were left behind.
Though bankrolled through a crooked money laundering scheme, their original project promised to put in place a program to reduce the CO2 levels on Earth, ease global warming, and pave the way for the future. The rescue mission, itself unsanctioned, doesn't have a much better chance of succeeding. All manner of technical mishaps, unplanned-for dangers, and cutthroat competition for the precious resources from the asteroid await the three miners. One of them has cancer. The international community opposes the mission, with China, Russia, and the United States sending questionable "observers" to the new space station that gets built north of the moon for the expedition. And then there is Space Titan Jack Macy, a rogue billionaire threatening to grab the riches. (As one character says, "It's a free universe.") Suarez's basic story is a good one, with tense moments, cool robot surrogates, and virtual reality visions. But too much of the novel consists of long, sometimes bloated stretches of technical description, discussions of newfangled financing for "off-world" projects, and at least one unneeded backstory. So little actually happens that fixing the station's faulty plumbing becomes a significant plot point. For those who want to know everything about "silicon photovoltaics" and "orthostatic intolerance," Suarez's latest SF saga will be right up their alley. But for those itching for less talk and more action, the book's many pages of setup become wearing.
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18363-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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