Review by C.J. Bunce
Veering away from the expected pulp mystery its cover might suggest, the trippy, future-forward sci-fi novel Dr. Xivray and the Presidential Peril takes speculative futurism of the pulp era into the now as author Greg Tulonen creates a quickly-paced romp where the present seems to arrive as the future. Progress in artificial intelligence results in a scientist able to preserve her memories upon her early death via an artificial brain, creating a cybernetic mind as expansive as the entire Internet. So when she notices something is strange about the U.S. President, readers can believe it if she determines that only a certain washed-up dinner theater psychic can help. Blending both the true-hue color of 1950s pulp magazine sci-fi and the adventure of Saturday matinee serials, Dr. Xivray revisits the setting of the Roger Zelazny-inspired movie Dreamscape and updates Stephen King’s The Dead Zone with a small staff of spirited personalities you wouldn’t mind seeing again. For fans of Bradley W. Schenck’s Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom, Daniel Godfrey’s The Synapse Sequence, Steven Barnes’ Twelve Days, and Adam Christopher’s Killing is My Business, and anyone fascinated by the future tech of Altered Carbon and Alien: Earth, you’ll want to check out Dr. Xivray and the Presidential Peril, available here at Amazon.
Dr. Xivray is the titular heroine with the determination of Dinah Madani in The Punisher TV series and the vibe of Ash in the Blade Runner comic book tie-ins. I can’t tell if she is a bit stilted and robotic in her actions or if I’m just seeing that because I know she’s a kind of a borg. No doubt a more passionate and human character before she merged her mind into a new body, Dr. Xivray was once “best man” in the American President’s wedding, so when she uses her vast data analysis prowess to declare something is wrong with him, you believe that, too. This creates the kind of closeness that pushes realm-of-possibility questions aside–like the fact the hero of The Night Agent can have a night desk in the Oval Office, reading about scientists an arm’s length from the White House staff can be plausible. Besides, Dennis Quaid did it already in Dreamscape, the movie where a psychic training project gets corrupted by a man seeking control of the White House. And Johnny Smith similarly faced a corrupt politician with special abilities in Michael Piller’s TV adaptation of The Dead Zone.
The story is told by Vivian “Velvet” Derrick, archivist at the Xivray Institute. Velvet, the most likeable character of the group, writes with excitement and enthusiasm about the incredible happenings at her job. Dr. Xivray has been long attached to Gilbert “Twitch” Jefferson (almost everyone has nicknames), who was her lover before she died–sadly she doesn’t remember that in her new incarnation. Twitch is the genius with all the future tech. And Naomi is a reporter who knows a good story when she gets a whiff of one. Then there is David, the psychic, one of only a half dozen who Dr. Xivray predicts are living in secrecy among us. David is bored with life when readers first meet him. But he seems to be waiting for something to change his trajectory.
Upon David’s first arrival into the secret lab–the Xivray Institute–with his psychic abilities he’s frenetically absorbing information, all as Velvet watches. As she tries to make heads or tails out of what he’s thinking… it all seems reminiscent of Lily Tomlin trying to get the dead body out of the hospital in 9 to 5. The scene lands when David, suddenly learning a person can live after their death among other impossible things, simply reads Velvet briefly before uttering, “so you’re a lesbian.” The humor lands just right as the author begins to inform the reader what kind of a flawed hero is leading this story. He’s a bit of a flake, but his abilities in the current crisis are invaluable to Dr. Xivray and her team. He’s also a classic pusher (although that term isn’t used in the book) and like the mysterious presence in the movie Fallen, David doesn’t just read thoughts from others, he can push his thoughts to others and maybe even make them act at his whim.
It has the energy of a Phillip K. Dick story, the humorous havoc of the uprooted presidency from the movie Dave, with wacky characters in a pastiche of all sorts of genres and tropes. The story may even feel prescient–it includes an assassination attempt at a White House correspondence dinner, and White House officials using ICE to apprehend Dr. Xivray for no lawful reason (the book was penned a few years ago). The Wormtongue of the tale–the secret of who is both in the ear of the President and who is attempting to seize control of the presidency and worse–it all reads as very present. It also juggles several tropes from the super-villain school, evoking elements from James Bond and X-Men: Days of Future Past. That’s a blend of a lot of pop and pulp culture for one book, but it’s also concisely written and its 400 pages may have you take it all in in only a sitting or two. Fans of all the above and classic science fiction won’t want to miss Dr. Xivray and the Presidential Peril, available here at Amazon.
