Influx

Starred review from December 16, 2013
With this terrifying thriller, Suarez (Kill Decision) provides further support for the proposition that he’s a worthy successor to the late Michael Crichton. Scientist Jon Grady and his colleagues have just invented a device that can reflect gravity, a major breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize physics. But Grady’s moment of triumph is short-lived. A Luddite terrorist, Richard Cotton (whose group is winningly described as “a branch of militant Amish who had settled on the mid-1980s as their permissible technological level”), captures Grady’s team and sets off explosives to destroy them and their creation. To Grady’s surprise, he survives the blast, only to find himself in the clutches of a seemingly omniscient U.S. government agency, the Federal Bureau of Technology Control, which monitors innovations and assesses their “social, political, environmental and economic impacts with the goal of preserving social order.” That brief requires the BTC to suppress advances, like the gravity reflector, for what it perceives as the greater good. Suarez once again mixes science and fiction perfectly. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn, Raphael Sagalyn Inc.

November 1, 2013
In his latest, Suarez (Kill Decision, 2012, etc.) follows the adventures of eccentric genius Jon Grady, who has run afoul of the Federal Bureau of Technology Control. The BTC is a Cold War relic, an agency spawned by the supersecret government nether world. Cold fusion, artificial intelligence, quantum computing with holographic presence, an immortal strand of DNA and countless other advances are quarantined--but employed--by the BTC, which theoretically is "assessing their social, political, environmental, and economic impacts with the goal of preserving social order." That means Jon Grady, a self-taught researcher without think-tank or university backing, draws BTC's notice when he employs exotic particle states to create a gravity mirror. Grady's kidnapped by the BTC, but he refuses to cooperate and employ his knowledge of manipulating gravity for their shadowy purposes. Grady's relegated to Hibernity, BTC's prison, and BTC co-opts his technology. The book is premise-driven, with characters running to type. The wizard nerd, Grady, has avuncular advocates like Dr. Bertrand Alcot, supportive retired professor, and Archibald Chattopadhyay, nuclear physicist and a fellow Hibenity prisoner, as guides. Hedrick, BTC chief, is self-important, an authoritarian under a benign shell. Morrison, BTU security, former military special ops, employs his squabbling clones as staff. Alexa, with altered DNA that "give[s] her longevity, intelligence, and perfect form," is BTC's biotech wonder. A self-appointed prophet, Cotton, head of the Winnowers, wants to halt technology's progress. With BTC under scrutiny of a new U.S. director of intelligence and Hedrick coping with breakaway BTC elements gone rouge in Russia and Asia, Grady escapes Hibernity and sets out to bring BTC down. The story is atomic-weighted with science terminology from college-level texts, but the narrative is easily understandable. There's a thread left unraveled and a plot hole related to a character's scientific and technological capabilities, but the narrative rockets along right up to a good-versus-evil battle that would be better resolved on the IMAX screen than the page. Fun tech-fiction wrapped in black helicopter conspiracy.

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Starred review from December 1, 2013
Jon Grady, a mostly self-taught particle physicist, is on the verge of perfecting an invention that will change the world when a group of radical terrorists break into his lab, destroy the place, and kill everyone withinexcept not really. Grady isn't killed; instead he's spirited off to the top-secret headquarters of the Bureau of Technology Control (BTC), a clandestine U.S. government department devoted to identifying and controlling new technologies. The BTC offers Grady the opportunity to work for them, developing his ideas for the benefit of the BTC, but Grady refusesand is promptly whisked away to a BTC prison, where an artificial-intelligence inquisitor inflicts a variety of tortures on him, trying to force his cooperation. And that's just the beginning, the set-up, really, of this high-flying (literally) sf adventure. Further story developments should probably be left to the author to reveallet's just say readers familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo will spot some key thematic similarities, and the book's denouement involves some of the most imaginative plot contrivances you're likely to encounter. But it is safe to say that the book is extremely well crafted. The characters (even the not-strictly-human ones) are vivid, the pacing is perfect, the villain is capital-E evil, and the author's near-future world is so well developed that you completely buy even his wildest speculations. A tour de force of speculative fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

May 26, 2014
The new high-tech thriller from Suarez describes a rogue government agency that hijacks new inventions and holds inventors captive at a supersecret prison. The story plays out against a backdrop of artificial intelligence entities programmed to maintain the airtight security surrounding these sinister covert activities. Perhaps the most effective aspect of the recording is the enhanced machinelike sound of Gurner’s voice when he speaks for these complicated not-quite-human figures. The chilling refrain of “I am sorry, but I am going to have to try to kill you” packs a powerful punch. When these devices join the novel’s protagonist and his unlikely band of rebels in an uprising, angst and excitement are transferred to the listener. A Dutton hardcover.