An ill-timed and awkwardly executed novella.
An asteroid creates a deadly dilemma for the president of the United States in this SF novella.
It’s 2050, and a massive asteroid called Camulos is headed for Earth. The nondescript Maj. Kristin Orsted and her fellow NASA Space Force pilots race to destroy it before impact. In case that plan doesn’t pan out, U.S. President John Sanders—descendant of a “long respected political family hailing from Vermont”—has unleashed a “planned pandemic” (a new coronavirus called “COVID-50”) on the world. While Dr. Tony Cifau tallies deaths and works on a vaccine, the National Security Agency uses phones, tablets, and smart TVs to see which citizens follow social distancing guidelines. The feds then zero in on people with skill sets and “genetic make-up” deemed beneficial to the survival of human species. It’s all part of a plan to get 1,000 “highly educated, highly skilled, cross-functional, and obedient” Americans aboard a shuttle to Mars. Those who can’t “follow orders” or “wear...a simple mask” are automatically struck from the passenger list, meaning that they’ll perish if the asteroid hits. Baird’s prose is sturdy and his plot, ambitious. However, the plan raises ethical and moral questions that aren’t well explored. Not one character picks up on the elitism at play, and President Sanders does little more than mope around the Oval Office. The work is also often weighed down by SF jargon—not related to new planets or alien languages (as in Star Wars, which Baird references multiple times) but boring back and forth between Orsted and mission control about meganewtons, calculations, and fuel capacities. Characters are vaguely sketched and seem less like real people than they do pawns for the plot. Notably, the book’s descriptions of COVID-50’s gruesome symptoms and the frustrations of lockdown feel too raw. There may come a time for quarantine lit, but many readers will feel that that time is still in the future.
An ill-timed and awkwardly executed novella. (acknowledgements, author bio) (ISBN: 979-8672700908 Page Count: 174 Publisher: Independently Published/NA (?) Categories: Science Fiction, Space, Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi, Teen Sci-Fi(?)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-67-270090-8
Page Count: 174
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.
The first installment of Liu’s Julia Z saga is an SF thriller set in a near-future “post-truth age” where the use of AI and the inundation of digital disinformation and data pollution have blurred the lines between delusion and reality.
Julia—whose immigrant mother, a divisive political activist, was murdered during a border protest—has lived on her own since she was 14. A brilliant hacker now 23, she’s been trying to live in online anonymity, acutely aware of the multitude of ways she can be identified and tracked. Living in a Boston suburb and struggling to make ends meet, she inadvertently becomes entangled with a lawyer named Piers Neri and his search for his artist wife, Elli Krantz—famous for her experimental work in vivid dreaming—who may or may not have been kidnapped. A prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance, Piers goes on the run with the help of Julia—and together, they begin putting together pieces of a mind-bogglingly intricate puzzle that links Elli to a powerful criminal with a global reach. As Julia digs deeper into the appeal of vivid dreaming and the criminal’s ruthless endeavors, she discovers the sham that is the American Dream: “America was corrupt and steeped in sin. The powerful had rigged the game for themselves and turned the country into a panopticon to imprison the rest of us. Anytime one of the powerless—it didn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you spoke, the place you were born in—was on the verge of climbing out, they would be ruthlessly tossed back into the pit.” And amid the backdrop of dealing with unresolved childhood trauma and the need to find her place in the world, she finds something unexpected—herself.
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781668083178
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: yesterday
IMAX-scale bleeding-edge techno-horror from a writer with a freshly sharpened scalpel and time on his hands.
The world as we know it ended in Wanderers, Wendig’s 2019 bestseller. Now what?
A sequel to a pandemic novel written during an actual pandemic sounds pretty intense, and this one doesn’t disappoint, heightened by its author’s deft narrative skills, killer cliffhangers, and a not inconsiderable amount of bloodletting. To recap: A plague called White Mask decimated humanity, with a relative handful saved by a powerful AI called Black Swan that herded this hypnotized flock to Ouray, Colorado. Among the survivors are Benji Ray, a scientist formerly with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Shana Stewart, who is pregnant and the reluctant custodian of the evolving AI (via nanobots, natch); Sheriff Marcy Reyes; and pastor Matthew Bird. In Middle America, President Ed Creel, a murdering, bigoted, bullying Trump clone, raises his own army of scumbags to fight what remains of the culture wars. When Black Swan kidnaps Shana’s child, she and Benji set off on another cross-country quest to find a way to save him. On their way to CDC headquarters, they pick up hilariously foulmouthed rock god Pete Corley, back from delivering Willie Nelson’s guitar to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This novel is an overflowing font of treasures peppered with more than a few pointed barbs for any Christofacists or Nazis who might have wandered in by accident. Where Wanderers was about flight in the face of menace, this is an old-fashioned quest with a small band of noble heroes trying to save the world while a would-be tyrant gathers his forces. All those big beats, not least a cataclysmic showdown in Atlanta, are tempered by the book’s more intimate struggles, from Shana’s primal instinct to recover her boy to the grief Pete buries beneath levity to Matthew Bird’s near-constant grapple with guilt. It’s a lot to take in, but Pete’s ribald, bombastic humor as well as funny interstitials and epigraphs temper the horror within.
IMAX-scale bleeding-edge techno-horror from a writer with a freshly sharpened scalpel and time on his hands.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-15877-7
Page Count: 816
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© 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.
