A well-done and satisfying SF thriller with a memorable young antihero.
An adolescent boy in 1967 forms a bond with an extraterrestrial entity stranded on Earth as the local body count rises in Aanes’ SF thriller.
The story opens in an untamed 1663 Virginia forest, where a disc-shaped interstellar craft careens out of control and crashes, entombing its cyclopean alien pilot in a tangle of mud and tree roots. Over the next centuries, the consciousness of the creature attempts to communicate with random humans settling the area, with sometimes fatal results. Ultimately, in the fall of 1967, when the region has become a “redneck” suburban community, the entity finds a collaborator, in the form of adolescent Billy Beaudet. The son of a Korean War casualty on bad terms with his hard-drinking, less-than-loving stepdad, Billy eagerly absorbs the works of Homer and seems more thoughtful and forward-looking than his peers—he won’t subscribe to the prevailing anti-Black racism among his friends, family and neighbors, for instance. The alien inhabits the plastic form of Billy’s favorite toy soldier and reveals itself to Billy as a wonder-working genie, granting Billy’s every whim, including healing the schoolboy’s bad eyesight. But Billy, bright and admirable as he is, remains bound to the testosterone-charged youth culture of cliques, bad-influence peer pressure, merciless feuds, homophobia, and raw lust. Casualties mount in the course of Rémy’s little errands, and the police start to notice. This nicely honed narrative is like something out of a vintage horror comic book crossed with a vivid coming-of-age narrative—Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life (1989) rewritten by Joe R. Lansdale, perhaps, and not for the squeamish. Profane rural dialogue and pithy descriptions (“Bull Broward’s words exploded the levee, their authoritative gravity forcing the human sea to flow along”) lend a fine flavor to the very atypical ET invasion, and Billy is a disturbingly sympathetic menace, as his rash impulses and good intentions bring about shocking and savage acts.
A well-done and satisfying SF thriller with a memorable young antihero.Pub Date: July 24, 2023
ISBN: 9798887030982
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Litprime Solutions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.
Weir’s latest is a page-turning interstellar thrill ride that follows a junior high school teacher–turned–reluctant astronaut at the center of a desperate mission to save humankind from a looming extinction event.
Ryland Grace was a once-promising molecular biologist who wrote a controversial academic paper contesting the assumption that life requires liquid water. Now disgraced, he works as a junior high science teacher in San Francisco. His previous theories, however, make him the perfect researcher for a multinational task force that's trying to understand how and why the sun is suddenly dimming at an alarming rate. A barely detectable line of light that rises from the sun’s north pole and curves toward Venus is inexplicably draining the star of power. According to scientists, an “instant ice age” is all but inevitable within a few decades. All the other stars in proximity to the sun seem to be suffering with the same affliction—except Tau Ceti. An unwilling last-minute replacement as part of a three-person mission heading to Tau Ceti in hopes of finding an answer, Ryland finds himself awakening from an induced coma on the spaceship with two dead crewmates and a spotty memory. With time running out for humankind, he discovers an alien spacecraft in the vicinity of his ship with a strange traveler on a similar quest. Although hard scientific speculation fuels the storyline, the real power lies in the many jaw-dropping plot twists, the relentless tension, and the extraordinary dynamic between Ryland and the alien (whom he nicknames Rocky because of its carapace of oxidized minerals and metallic alloy bones). Readers may find themselves consuming this emotionally intense and thematically profound novel in one stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed sitting.
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13520-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 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.
