Wild Country

March 4, 2019
Following the first-person experiment of 2018’s Lake Silence, the first book in the World of the Others continuation of the paranormal Others series, Bishop reverts to form, using multiple third-person perspectives to tell an unsatisfying story that doesn’t quite stand alone. Bennett, a Midwest town, was previously a secondary location in the series, which focused on Upstate New York. Tolya Sanguinati, a vampiric Other, becomes mayor of Bennett after the human population is nearly wiped out by the Elders, an unimaginably powerful form of Other. The handful who survive are Intuits, a marginal group of precognitives. If Bennett is to endure as more than a train stop, it needs more people. Can Tolya and his Intuit partner, Jesse Walker, organize the immigration of enough desirable residents before grifters like the Blackstone Clan slip in and subvert the new order? Bishop overtly frames this as a wild west showdown, complete with a gun battle in the town square, but such trappings do little to spruce up the now-tired premise of greedy, foolish humans underestimating the Others and getting spectacularly demolished. With no character innovation and a stronger-than-usual whiff of eugenics, this installment suggests the series has lost its visionary spark. Agent: Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maass Literary Agency.