Fans of high-tech SF will enjoy the concepts and worldbuilding here, despite its pacing problems.
The fifth book in Johnston’s technothriller series sets up the story of an arms race in a future world ravaged by climate crises.
In 2131, Truman “Mac” McClusky is mayor of Trieste, an American underwater city. It’s one of many submerged locales providing kelp and fish to surface-based superpowers, including the United States, China, and Russia, which are rapidly being swallowed up by floods. He’s trying to unite fellow undersea cities to form Oceania, a federation that will give them more leverage. He’s built a coalition of 14 such cities and is looking to get Churchill Sands, with its dynamic mayor, Sahar Noor, to join them. His quest is complicated by recent attempts on his life that have also threatened his girlfriend, Renee.An old friend of his father’s, Richard Lancombe, helps to facilitate the meeting with Noor, as chief security officer Cliff Sim tries to solve the mystery of the assassination attempts. Richard also brings Mac’s attention to a new weapon, the Laser Weapon System Encased Underwater Neutral Particle Beam, which could be used to defend Trieste against submarine attacks; the novel also introduces Chalam Kaashif, a vengeful geologist whose brother and friends were killed by the same weapon. A group that includes Meg, Mac’s sister; weapon inventor Alyssna Sonstraal; and Commodore Bertram A. Clarke, an officer from Britain’s submarine fleet, undertake a mission to recover the four parts of Alyssna’s creation in different undersea cities and submarines. Johnston presents readers with a diverse set of characters, along with a complicated world for them to navigate. The novel shines when describing the technology, as when the characters discuss the beam weapon, nicknamed “The Water Pick.” Where this book stumbles is in its pacing and characterization. Perhaps because it’s the fifth book in the series, there’s a steady flow of backstory that disrupts the plot’s forward momentum. There’s a lot of potential in these characters, but they often come off as one-note (exemplified by Chalam’s constant chant that he wants revenge),which makes them overly predictable.
Fans of high-tech SF will enjoy the concepts and worldbuilding here, despite its pacing problems.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2022
ISBN: 9781554556007
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Fans of gothic classics like Rebecca will be enthralled as long as they don’t mind a heaping dose of all-out horror.
Moreno-Garcia offers a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror, set in 1950s Mexico.
Inquisitive 22-year-old socialite and anthropology enthusiast Noemí Taboada adores beautiful clothes and nights on the town in Mexico City with a bevy of handsome suitors, but her carefree existence is cut short when her father shows her a disturbing letter from her cousin Catalina, who recently married fair-haired and blue-eyed Virgil Doyle, who comes from a prominent English mining family that built their now-dwindling fortune on the backs of Indigenous laborers. Catalina lives in High Place, the Doyle family’s crumbling mansion near the former mining town of El Triunfo. In the letter, Catalina begs for Noemí’s help, claiming that she is “bound, threads like iron through my mind and my skin,” and that High Place is “sick with rot, stinks of decay, brims with every single evil and cruel sentiment.” Upon Noemí’s arrival at High Place, she’s struck by the Doyle family’s cool reception of her and their unabashed racism. She's alarmed by the once-vibrant Catalina’s listless state and by the enigmatic Virgil and his ancient, leering father, Howard. Nightmares, hallucinations, and phantasmagoric dreams of golden dust and fleshy bodies plague Noemí, and it becomes apparent that the Doyles haven’t left their blood-soaked legacy behind. Luckily, the brave Noemí is no delicate flower, and she’ll need all her wits about her for the battle ahead. Moreno-Garcia weaves elements of Mexican folklore with themes of decay, sacrifice, and rebirth, casting a dark spell all the way to the visceral and heart-pounding finale.
Fans of gothic classics like Rebecca will be enthralled as long as they don’t mind a heaping dose of all-out horror.Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-62078-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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