A powerful launch to a fresh SF series that promises a wealth of ingenious concepts.
Three individuals in a spacefaring future—where people fluidly inhabit successive bodies—participate in a desperate rescue mission near Neptune.
Linse’s Mechalum Space series begins with this auspicious SF novel, initially a triptych that comes together in the fourth act. The 28th-century setting encompasses a space-straddling era of Homo mutatis. Humankind has mastered the technique of inserting a consciousness into a seemingly endless variety of prepared bodies, whether organically grown flesh-and-blood hosts or special-purpose mechs. Virtual immortality, artificial intelligence companions, and perpetual attachment to the descendant of the internet (“the mesh”) are part of this revolution. But the real payoff is the invention of “Faison Gates.” These allow inquisitive, adventurous, or just plain desperate minds to teleport instantaneously throughout 300 remotely settled planets and environments in deep space. But it’s hardly idyllic. A religious war (traditional religion lost, apparently) raged early in this new era, and a backward-looking Earth has been largely cut off and neglected ever since. And two “essents” trying to occupy the same body will result in the death of one of them, a known method of assassination. In such a nest of polymorphic intrigue, Jazari is a somewhat naïve student of “xenolinguistics” (trained to communicate with advanced alien races even though such direct contact has not yet happened). She was forced by circumstance into joining the talented and diverse crew of crime kingpin Zosi, a choice she ultimately regrets. On another distant world, scientist Eala studies a gentle amphibious species called the taktak, whose ability to communicate telepathically represents another possible breakthrough. And, on the rim of humanity’s original, now-obscure solar system, a biologically generated body, code-named ZD777, is revived, nurtured, and educated by an AI guardian only to be informed of his predicament: He is the lone man aboard a hollowed-out asteroid, formerly a teeming space base for the Kuiper belt, now a forgotten, derelict habitat slowly failing in orbit around Neptune.
The potential to rescue ZD777 from his apparently hopeless fate is the climax of the multiheaded narrative stream, and quite a nail-biter it becomes. (Whether those nails are human or metallic alloy is up for discussion.) Wyoming-based author Linse previously published books set in the hardscrabble American West of today and yesteryear but adapts to the final frontier of far-future space with no rocky trails or cowboy atavisms whatsoever. Some of the speculations here (especially concerning the nature of intelligence, biologically native or artificial) could have taught Isaac Asimov a thing or two. That said, tenderfeet to this universe will have to struggle initially with a density of imaginative futurespeak jargon and para-human traits (including the near-universal use of the pronoun sheto designate everyone; complete genderfluidity evidently does that to a society). Linse only provides the expected information downloads and history lesson expositions every 100 pages or so. But readers who can think on their feet and adapt to the altered paradigm of what it means to be human—or sentient—are in for an exciting and provocative expedition to a new realm of ideas that’s particularly strong in the characterization department. The novel ends with every indication that more riches remain to be tapped from Mechalum Space.
A powerful launch to a fresh SF series that promises a wealth of ingenious concepts. (author bio)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-953694-00-3
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Salix
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
PROFILES
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
The impossibility of pigeon-holding Ray Bradbury as a science fiction writer is once again emphasized in this charming philosophical study of adolescence. Douglas Spaulding at twelve is suddenly excitingly aware of the world around him, of the magic and wonder and understanding that had passed him by. His neighbors take on new dimensions. Death and old age as universal factors of living shock him to the depths. A country summer becomes something that must be seized and recorded with every passing hour. A friend who has been all-compassing moves from town; it is almost more than he can bear — and he turns to his small brother with unexpected attachment. The dandelion wine becomes a symbol of successive events, week by week. This is not a novel. Rather is it a blend of nostalgic recall — very definitely an adult remembering, interpreting, philosophizing over the brief period of awakening that belongs to adolescence, and episodes about incidents, often horrors, related to other people in the town. There's a succession of murders of young women; there's a newcomer, an old lady, who learns through the children not to cling to her past; there's a strange love affair between an elderly spinster and a young newspaper man; there's an ancient whose vivid reliving of his past brings history to life for the boy listeners. Douglas is now a central figure, now a participant, and frequently merely a passer-by in the lives of his elders. This demands rather special handling and understanding. The poignant quality of Bradbury's writing, the evocative elements that will capture others than his usual audience, combine to make this an unusual reading experience.
Pub Date: March 26, 1975
ISBN: 0380977265
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1975
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