Lexicon

April 8, 2013
The fate of humanity is at stake in this ambitious satirical thriller from Australian author Barry (Machine Man). Picked off the streets of San Francisco after displaying a “natural aptitude” for persuasion, 16-year-old magician/hustler Emily Ruff joins a group of prodigies at “the Academy,” where “poets” learn the magic of controlling others’ minds with words. Meanwhile, hapless Wil Parke, the key player in an internal war between highly trained poets called Eliot and Woolf, is the only person known to survive the infamous “bareword” Woolf set loose in Broken Hill, Australia, two years before—an event that killed thousands and wiped Wil’s memory clean. Eliot believes Wil to be the only one capable of stopping this word that “can persist... like an echo,” and is determined to use Wil in his quest to elucidate the word’s elemental code. Emily’s story and Wil’s story converge in a violent denouement that amuses as much as it shocks.

Starred review from April 1, 2013
Modern-day sorcerers fight a war of words in this intensely analytical yet bombastic thriller. Barry (Machine Man, 2011, etc.) is usually trying to be the funny guy in the world of postmodern satire, with arrows keenly aimed at corporate greed and how to make it in advertising. Apparently, our Australian comrade has changed his mind, racing up alongside the likes of Neal Stephenson with this smart, compelling, action-packed thriller about the power of words. In a deft narrative move, Barry parallels two distinct storylines before bringing them together with jaw-dropping surprises. In the first, a carpenter named Wil is jumped in an airport bathroom by a pair of brutal agents who kill his girlfriend and kidnap him for reasons unknown. In a storyline a few years back, we meet a smart, homeless grifter named Emily Ruff on the streets of San Francisco. After a run-in with a mark, Emily is invited to train under the auspices of a mysterious international syndicate known as "The Poets." The shady peddlers of influence and power force Emily to study words as if they were a source of incredible power--and in the hands of gifted prodigies like Emily, they are. What could have been a sly attempt to satirize postmodern marketing and social media becomes something of a dark fantasy as couplets intended merely to influence become spell-like incantations with the power to kill. Back in America with Wil and his new captor, Elliot, we learn that Wil is the sole survivor of a terminal event in rural Australia and is being relentlessly pursued by Woolf, the perpetrator of the attack in Oz. In the background, the cult's mysterious leader, Yeats, pulls strings that put everyone at risk, and no one turns out to be who we imagined. An up-all-night thriller for freaks and geeks who want to see their wizards all grown up in the real world and armed to the teeth in a bloody story.

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May 1, 2013

What if there was a word that could compel anyone to do anything? That's the premise of Barry's new novel (after Machine Man), which posits a secret society of "poets" who collect and wield special words to control others. Emily Ruff, a teenager living on the street, has been recruited by the organization but leaves in seeming disgrace. Years later, Wil Parke is caught in a firefight between the factions--over him. He is the only survivor of a horrifying event unleashed by an ultimate word of power. But there is a deeper connection between Wil and Emily and the organization that comes between them. While that link isn't hard to figure out, Barry keeps the tension high as another poet, Eliot, tries to stop the unfolding destruction. Barry's fear of conspiracies and the corporatization of society are in play here, along with a new focus on his exploration of power and corruption--religion. VERDICT Lexicon isn't as satirical as Barry's other works, but it is a scary and satisfying blend of thriller, dystopia, and horror.--Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2013
Words have power to persuade, to coerce, even to kill. And so they have since the days when wordsmiths were called sorcerers. Streetwise teenager Emily knows nothing of this until she is recruited to join a clandestine international organization that seems bent on taking over the world through the power of languagethe reason, perhaps, that its members call themselves poets. In the meantime, a young man, Wil, is kidnapped from an airport by two mysterious men determined to unlock a secret buried deep in his brain. Yes, Wil and Emily will be brought together in due course, but in the meantime there is a great deal, some of it abstruse, about language in this fast-paced, cerebral thriller that borders on speculative fiction, but none of it slows the nonstop action that takes readers from Washington, D.C., to a small town in the Australian desert, a town whose 3,300 residents have all died mysteriously and violently. Could the cause have been the power of words at work? The poets sometimes seem a bit too omnipotent, and the book's chronology is occasionally a bit confusing, but otherwise this is an absolutely first-rate, suspenseful thriller with convincing characters who invite readers' empathy and keep them turning pages until the satisfying conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)