A smart, snappy epic of intrigue, technology, and skullduggery in the near future.
Disaster strikes when a 21st-century asteroid-mining entrepreneur tries to haul a valuable space rock to Earth in Chan’s SF novel.
Sometime after the 2030s, in an age of widespread economic and social global turmoil, Earth’s commercial exploitation of space becomes the “Next Big Thing” and hope for a bright tomorrow. Charles Sorrel, an erstwhile astronaut who “washed out” of the program, is eking out a living (and paying alimony) by putting together shady deals for shadier private aerospace startups. His powerful former father-in-law, senator Robert McClusky, hands Sorrel a lucrative gig: the White House’s inquiry into a shattering space tragedy. Celebrity entrepreneur Ethan DeWaal funded a pioneering expedition to capture a mineral-rich asteroid and maneuver it back toward Earth for consumption, but a titanic explosion caused the deaths of all four astronauts, including charismatic Carol Mathers, the enormously popular public face of the mission who represented DeWaal’s company (called Abundance). Sorrel interviews DeWaal, Mather’s heartbroken wife, Jen, and others; and what at first seemed to be a tragic accident assumes a more sinister tone with the involvement of Chinese space corporation Yangshen. They claim to have detected a massive fragment of the destroyed asteroid hurtling toward Earth and plan to take control of it as their own property. Was there a lethal conspiracy in place from the outset? Chan’s somewhat Chandleresque hardboiled prose is rife with Los Angeles references (“it became briefly infamous late last century for being the place where an army of police cars finally arrested a retired football star driving a white Ford Bronco, but that’s a subject best swept under the rug”) as well as sidebars on Chinese culture and values. The novel is a satisfying blend of near-future forecast, technothriller, geopolitical crime whodunit (though the guilty parties are no great surprise), cyberpunk, and space adventure. The author’s background in the entertainment industry is evidenced in the cinematic slam-bang chase finale and headlong momentum that helps to propel the material through the iffier patches.
A smart, snappy epic of intrigue, technology, and skullduggery in the near future.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9798990940024
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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