A fevered post-apocalyptic yarn heavier on philosophical meanderings than survivalist thrills.
The apparent sole human remaining in a future western America depopulated by war, plague, and eco-collapse comes across the writings of a fellow survivor in Koszulinski’s SF novel.
Jane Ballard, born in 2055, is the lonely survivor of an apocalyptic dystopia beset by climate horror, famine, genocide, and war. She’s a Marine Corps veteran of the secessionist California Republic of some 15 liberal-minded states—they were supposedly the good guys, but Jane understands that propaganda was rampant, so who knows? Also rampant: a mysterious contagion, Virus (x), which delivered the final blow, wiping out almost every human on Earth, plus dogs and cats. Jane wanders the West, seeking others still alive. In Arizona, she discovers “Dead Man”—the mummified corpse of a former U.S. government “archeopsychic extractor” (torturer) who evidently walked unprotected into the daytime heat to expire. Dead Man’s journals and hideaway in a book-filled disused motel send Jane into reveries about civilization’s ultimate downfall, when “the feed” (read: internet) extirpated words on paper in favor of an ever-changing, AI-dominated miasma of illusion, fake-news hoaxes, and alienating virtual sex (even bisexual Jane partook), undermining the basics of humanity. (“It was not Virus (x) or the endless ecological perils, it was the dissolution of a shared reality that brought about collapse.”) Dead Man’s ghostly diatribes haunt Jane, even after she stumbles on tangible evidence in Taos of other holdouts. With a wobbly back-and-forth chronology and breakaway asides, the narrative feels more manifestolike than other dire post-holocaust Robinsonades and examples of “prepper” fiction. The text employs almost-experimental free verse (“Transformation, transformation, transformation. We are not the wardens. War crimes end-of-times? We are the shepherds leading the sheep on the path of enlightenment. Touch the light with your burning bodies”) to ruminate on religion, guilt, machine-intelligence limitations, wealth inequality, habitat loss, and the overarching need for community. The tale is by turns provocative and frustrating as its hero pursues her foggy goal.
A fevered post-apocalyptic yarn heavier on philosophical meanderings than survivalist thrills.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.
The fourth and final volume in the Terra Ignota series, a science fantasy set on a 25th-century Earth where people affiliate by philosophy and interest instead of geography.
For the first time in centuries, the world is seized by war—once the combatants actually figure out how to fight one. While rivalries among the Hives provide several motives for conflict, primary among them is whether J.E.D.D. Mason, the heir to various political powers and apparently a god from another universe in human form, should assume absolute rule over the world and transform it for the better. Gathering any large group to further the progress of the war or the possibility for peace is hampered by the loss of the world transit system of flying cars and the global communications network, both shut down by parties unknown, indicating a hidden and dangerous faction manipulating the situation for its own ends. As events play out, they bear a strong resemblance to aspects of the Iliad and the Odyssey, suggesting the persistent influence of Bridger, a deceased child who was also probably a god. Is tragedy inevitable, or can the characters defy their apparent fates? This often intriguing but decidedly peculiar chimera of a story seems to have been a philosophical experiment, but it’s difficult to determine just what was being tested. The worldbuilding—part science, part magic—doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny, and the political structure defies comprehension. The global government consists of an oligarchy of people deeply and intimately connected by love and hate on a scale which surpasses the royal dynasties of old, and it includes convicted felons among their number. Perhaps the characters are intended as an outsized satiric comment on the way politicians embrace expediency over morality or personal feelings, but these supposedly morally advanced potentates commit so many perverse atrocities against one another it is difficult to engage with them as people. At times, they seem nearly as alien as J.E.D.D. Mason.
Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7806-4
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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