Burning Paradise

Starred review from September 16, 2013
Hugo-winner Wilson (The Chronoliths) casts a cold eye at SF clichés in this powerful novel designed to shake up lazy readers. In an alternate 2014, contented citizens are celebrating a century of “approximate peace” since the Armistice ended the war in Europe. Only members of the Correspondence Society realize that an alien entity encompassing the planet has been manipulating and pacifying humanity by controlling electronic communication and sending sims—artificial products of its hive mind—to kill anyone who discovers the truth. This is familiar stuff, and readers will expect to see heroic humans casting off the alien tyranny. Instead, Wilson focuses on the difficult moral choices his characters must face as they consider what has been done for (not just to) humankind, and as they discover sims among their closest companions. Heroism is set side by side with deep pain, and there are no easy answers. This is a deeply thoughtful, deliberately discomfiting book that will linger long and uneasily in the reader’s mind. Agent: Shawna McCarthy, McCarthy Agency.

September 15, 2013
Skewed, alternate-world, aliens-among-us yarn from the talented author of Julian Comstock (2009). The world Cassie Iverson of Buffalo inhabits has been peaceful since the Great Armistice of 1914. As a result, social welfare has advanced, technology has lagged and computing is primitive. Cassie, however, is a member of the Correspondence Society which, years ago, discovered that the atmosphere's radio-reflective layer is actually a living entity, a cellular hypercolony that mimics intelligence through sheer computational power. And through its human agents, or sims, who look normal but have no individual awareness and bleed green goo, it controls human progress. In 2007, sims murdered Cassie's parents and other leading Society members; the rest scattered and went into hiding. She lives now with her aunt Nerissa and younger brother Thomas. One night when Nerissa is out, she sees a sim watching the house--a sim that dies in a traffic accident crossing the road, leaking green goo--and immediately flees with Thomas to Leo Beck, another Society member who lives nearby. Together, they formulate a desperate plan to locate Leo's rich father, Werner, who has long nurtured plans to destroy the hypercolony. Meanwhile, in rural Vermont, another sim visits Cassie's reclusive uncle Ethan--but this sim says it wants to talk. When Nerissa shows up, they disable the sim and interrogate it. It says it isn't part of the hypercolony but another, parasitical, entity--and it says it wants their help. This dazzling, complex and typically weird backdrop, augmented by nifty, character-driven plotting and action, leaves no doubt that it's all scarily real. However, later revelations tend to undermine all this excellent work, leaving a final third that doesn't convincingly add up. Regulars know where Wilson is coming from and probably won't mind, but it's impossible to avoid just a tinge of disappointment.

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June 1, 2013

It's 2015, and Cassie Klyne is living in a world that has not seen war since 1918. But Cassie knows that this benign state of affairs has been engineered by extraterrestrials using humans for their own purposes and that her parents were killed for knowing this secret. Hugo Award winner Wilson scares us again.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2013

Cassie Klyne lives with her Aunt Nerissa and her brother Thomas in an alternate Buffalo, NY, circa 2015. Neither the Great Depression nor World War II has occurred, and the world is slowly but steadily gaining in overall prosperity. Cassie, however, knows that her world is not as it seems; her parents were murdered for their discovery that that human history has been manipulated by an extraterrestrial presence for sinister reasons. When a mysterious man dies suddenly outside her apartment, Cassie knows that the alien killers are back, and she and her brother must flee for their lives. VERDICT The Hugo Award-winning author of Spin has written a story of gradual suspense and quiet terror, with believable characters and a compelling plot. Fans of conspiracy theories, alien encounters, and supernatural suspense should enjoy this work. [See Prepub Alert, 5/13/13.]

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.