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
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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