An outstanding SF series debut that explores what it means to be human.
In Gay’s SF series debut, a woman stolen from Earth to serve as an alien pet discovers a world-changing destiny.
On the eight-mooned planet Antaris, headquarters of the interstellar Commonwealth, humans are regarded by its eight-foot-tall denizens as mere animals, serving as menial workers and pets. An economic downturn means times are hard; clans of feral humans—“the Unowned”—roam the capital city’s Derelict Zone. Antarian “anthrozoologist” Henik Varkesen, who has observed a feral clan—led not, as would be expected of animals, by its strongest male, but by Alka, its most communicative female—believes humans are a fully cognitive, advanced species, but his view is highly controversial. Yan Feyrsten, a lonely professor, buys the Earth woman as a pet, naming her Kali. When the recommended harsh training methods don’t work with her, he asks his old friend Henrik for help. Kali soon proves she is highly intelligent, quickly learning the basics of their language, including writing, although much of it isn’t audible to humans. Her curious, independent, and determined personality captivates the two, but as the first Earth-born “natural” human on Antaris in several centuries, and a threat to the status quo, she may be in grave danger. The political situation is unstable, with a hotly contested election just days away. When you add in a disgraced police chief turned bounty hunter, manipulative journalists, a rare lunar eclipse coinciding with a major cultural holiday, and Kali’s uncanny resemblance to a figure in a mural whom the ferals view as their goddess, the stakes could hardly be higher. Gay skillfully builds an alien society whose politics may be a bit too similar to ours—but that conceit serves well as a platform for exploring the fundamental question of what makes a person, the ways in which viewing others as lesser beings distorts perceptions, and the forces that spur or oppose sweeping cultural change. The storyline is intricate but never confusing; the prose and dialogue sparkle (“Sela stared back, his eyes blank, as if his imagination was a muscle he rarely flexed”). The characters are well-drawn, distinct individuals, especially Kali, who, though seen mainly through the aliens’ eyes, emerges as thoughtful, perceptive, resilient, and brave.
An outstanding SF series debut that explores what it means to be human.Pub Date: July 24, 2024
ISBN: 9781838217723
Page Count: 421
Publisher: Rook Abbey Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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