A game effort at a tough theme.
The Singularity may become the new ultimate weapon in the aftermath of a nuclear debacle.
If the page-and-a-half prologue doesn’t stop the reader cold, nothing will. It begins: “If a beam of light / energy / open + / close— / reopen == / repeat / stop...” Stop, indeed. This will prompt only the geekiest among us to move on to Chapter 1. But do turn the page. In 2054, the U.S. is in turmoil. Two decades earlier, China nuked San Diego and Galveston while the U.S. inflicted the same on Shanghai and Shenzhen. In the aftermath, the two countries no longer dominate the world, and traditional U.S. political parties are no more. The current action begins when the physically fit President Ángel Castro collapses while giving a speech, prompting “malicious rumors that the president had suffered some sort of health crisis.” He had, and he dies. Of course, there are profound suspicions over his sudden demise. Was the president’s aorta inflamed by a sequence of computer code, à la the prologue? Is he a victim of “remote gene editing” by an unknown entity? Hence the inklings of the 21st century’s new existential threat, a race to achieve the Singularity, where—to oversimplify—technology and humanity become one. The cast includes some holdovers from the authors’ last book, 2034, including Dr. Sandy Chowdhury and Julia Hunt, a woman born in China with allegiance to the U.S. But key is the elusive (and nonfictional) Dr. Ray Kurzweil, thought to be living in Brazil. Meanwhile, American society threatens to explode into civil war between Dreamers and Truthers. But if the ultimate threat to humanity is the Singularity, it doesn’t come through convincingly on these pages. In 2034, the stakes were brutally clear, with millions of lives on the line. Two decades hence, they’re mushier—serious to be sure, but tougher to wrap up into a thriller. With apologies to T. S. Eliot: This is the way the book ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.
A game effort at a tough theme.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780593489864
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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