December 7, 2020
Chock-full of both big ideas and high-energy action, Bangs’s thrilling debut centers on a mad chase across a dystopian Earth in search of a collective consciousness that could save humanity from itself. Danae works as an often overlooked tech servant to a criminal syndicate that controls an underwater metropolis, but she is secretly a severed piece of a group mind that encompasses hundreds of people. Determined to get back to her larger self, she hires Alexei, a mercenary with a death-wish, to help her escape her employers. With Danae’s lover, Naoto, tagging along, the trio flees the city and heads to what was once Arizona—but they are doggedly pursued by bounty hunters and a shadowy figure from Danae’s past. Bangs pulls no punches when it comes to plot or characterization, but fails to fully flesh out her innovative settings, making it difficult to visualize events. Because of this hazy scene-setting, the first act drags. But by the time the characters reach dry land, the pace has picked up, leading to a riveting final sequence packed with firefights and fascinating ruminations on identity. This gritty, thought-provoking cyberpunk adventure does the genre justice. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary.
February 1, 2021
A lowly servant to the mob hires a haunted mercenary to escort her and her lover across a bleak, post-apocalyptic America in Bangs' debut. Danae is a woman of many secrets, chiefly that she isn't a woman at all: She is many people in one body. It takes a while to get to the specifics of what exactly that means, mainly because Danae begins the novel escaping a rapidly collapsing futuristic underwater city with her partner, Naoto, and a hired gun named Alexei. Danae hires Alexei to escort her and Naoto back to dry land and across the climate change-ravaged former United States. Between the action-packed escape to the surface and the bloodthirsty warlord named Duke who's tailing Danae for reasons she won't explain, the reader gets only hints and partial explanations of who Danae is for most of the first half. That's all well and good for worldbuilding and establishing tension, but Bangs does it almost too well. When we get into the specifics of how Danae came to be, the explanation is so rich with philosophical themes and narrative possibilities that it's a little disappointing it didn't appear until the second half of the novel. The secondary villain, called only Borrower, is so deeply fascinating it seems a shame we needed to bother with warlords and mobsters at all. The action and adventure at the beginning are fine, but stick around for the good stuff at the end.
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March 1, 2021
Thousands of years in the future, the United States has fractured into various countries. Crossing the borders can be tricky, and violence is an easy way to settle disputes. Danae is a unique being: They are old and claim responsibility for saving humanity a few times, but they are in pieces. In order to reunite with their whole self, they must escape their current city. Danae and her lover Naoto hire an ex-mercenary, Alexi, to guide them and keep them safe as they attempt their reunion. Danae and Naoto show a softer side of the apocalypse as they love one another completely. Naoto supports and loves Danae, through the difficult--and probably fatal--journey. But with mercenaries and--Danae's biggest fear--evangelicals around, the book has an end-of-the-world vibe. The apocalyptic landscape is terrifying, beautiful, and well thought out. Readers may very well draw parallels between this future-U.S. and our current reality. A compelling and interesting take on the end of the world.
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