What We Become

January 15, 2013
Karp returns to the technocentric autocracy of Those That Wake (2011) armed with the same angry characters and exploring the same gadgetry issues, though with a large dose of conspiracy theory added this time around. Mike is gone, and Jon Remak's lost in the neuropleth, but Mal Jericho and Laura Westlake still manage to negotiate daily life in a radically altered New York City that's characterized by a heightened police presence, an absence of bookstores and the invisible, controlling hand of the Old Man. Though separated by faulty memory, Laura and Mal both have companions to assist them as they work to recover their forgotten pasts. As the Old Man begins his mental maneuvering to seize a tool that will allow him to control every mind on Earth, Laura and Mal ascend the Lazarus Towers for a neuropleth battle. Mal's consistent ability to take punches and Laura's obsessive focus on interpersonal connections keep them from advancing as characters. Two other characters seem meant to be foils, but Rose's fragility and Aaron's blase approach to social cues are too one-dimensional to be effective. Vanishing bookstores, cancer-causing cellphone implants and omniscient Librarians add a dusty-feeling paternalism to the straining prose that fights and sexual creepsterism (sadly, sex is presented more negatively than otherwise) simply can't overcome. It's gone from bland to worse. (Dystopia. 14 & up)

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February 15, 2013
Grades 9-12 Librarian-author Karp continues the story began in his fiction debut, Those That Wake (2011), with this companion novel. Once again the world is in jeopardy, and the Old Man, as much myth as human, is determined to take it over. Only Laura and Mal can stop him, but first Laura must recover her memory, and Mal must escape the Old Man's machinations. Although Mal spends much of the book being periodically beaten to a pulp, he may have the easier job; Laura's past remains lost until she manages to track down the Librarian, a master of the interconnectedness of data, and takes her first steps toward regaining the entirety of her being. Karp's compelling story occasionally threatens to get bogged down with abstractions, as readers must grapple with sometimes purposefully presented big concepts with names like the Idea, the Neuropleth, and the Global Dynamic. Still, Karp's characters remain charismatic, the plot percolates briskly, and the world, it turns out, is worth saving.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)