The Puzzler’s War: The Tarakan Chronicles

Kless’s futuristic second Tarakan novel (after The Lost Puzzler) takes a revelatory trek across a postapocalyptic world. Mannes Holtz, the man responsible for the catastrophe that destroyed Tarakan, a high-tech corporate utopia, and started a world war, may also be the only person able to save it using the last working remnant of Tarakan tech: a space elevator in Mexico. On his way to retrieve the tech, his ship crash lands in central Asia, leaving Holtz to battle his way across continents, opposed by an artificial intelligence with a grudge, and “Twinkle Eyes,” the unnamed narrator of book one, who is also hoping to unlock more forgotten Tarakan facilities and believes Holtz to be a traitor. A good amount of humor balances the more violent scenes. Kless tantalizingly reveals much of the backstory that was teased in The Lost Puzzler through flashbacks and prophetic dreams, and maintains a taut moral tension over which side readers should root for, epitomized in the mercenary Galinak’s refrain “And here I was thinking I was on the good guys’ team.” The result is an expansive, entertaining far-future adventure. [em]Agent: Rena Rossner, Deborah Harris Literary. (Feb.) [/em]