The underlying premise is fascinating but not worth the initial eye-rolling slog.
To save humanity from extinction and obscurity, Rachel Cohen, a trainee at the moon-based SETI Library, interprets alien messages sent across galaxies and eons.
The SETI Librarians are the gatekeepers and curators of data alien cultures have set adrift in space, often millions of years ago, in hopes other intelligent life would find them. Some of these messages are Artificials—sentient AIs who must be convinced to share their vast knowledge. Rachel is particularly good at the task, which requires full-body immersion in pods that allow the Artificials to share their data using all available human sensory inputs. Working on her first Message, Rachel is raped by the AI in exchange for important information, which doesn’t seem to bother anyone but her, and that only slightly. After this great success, she moves on to other Messages, and her body and mind are once again used against her will. Eventually she finds herself ambassador to an alien race, but this time the aliens have come in person—and they’re asking for Rachel. If she plays her part, humanity may unlock the key to interstellar travel. The engaging premise is obscured for the first half of the book by pandering and outdated stereotypes. It reads like the author decided to throw in some concepts like feminism and gender fluidity without ever speaking to actual women or queer people, who don’t use the words yeastyand moistnearly as often as he seems to think they do. With women constantly thinking about their menstrual cycles and nongendered people referred to as “it,” the early part of this disjointed book is one yeasty, moist, hot mess. The second half gets considerably better after the aliens arrive and Rachel gets to make more of her own decisions, but she is still often along for the ride rather than influencing events. If she took more agency, perhaps Benford could be forgiven for the first half of the book, but the way he uses rape as a plot point, dissects the physical and intellectual prowess of Rachel’s Jewish ancestors, and consistently dehumanizes or vilifies anyone who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes doesn’t leave much room for later graciousness. Benford may have been trying to twist this SETI tale into a story that includes themes of gender and consent, but he didn’t do it justice.
The underlying premise is fascinating but not worth the initial eye-rolling slog.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4362-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
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
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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