My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Less science fiction than a thriller with a “what if” premise, Marcus Sakey’s Brilliance is a well-written and engaging novel that nevertheless makes you eager to get on to the next book in the series.
The concept is as simple as it is good: since 1980 1% of new children are born “brilliant” or “abnorm” – they have unique talents and abilities, almost superhuman in nature. The story, set in an alternate history, picks up during the current time, when this first generation of abnorm children have grown up and are impacting daily life.
The book cover prominently features a quote from Lee Child that boasts, “The Kind of Story You’ve Never Read Before”. Nonsense. The story completely echoes the X-Men series of comics and novels. Even if you’re not a reader you can’t have failed to notice they’ve made like 10 movies about them. And there are plenty of other stories that have trod on this ground. The quote doesn’t do the novel any favors. But if you put aside this pre-conceived idea of the incredible originality that was thrust upon you, you can appreciate the book for what it is – a very solid thriller that examines the real-life issues that would necessarily arise from such a seismic shift in the makeup of the human race.
Despite the obvious parallels to X-Men and other superhuman fare, the brilliants of Sakey’s series don’t vary in appearance from the “norms”. Their gifts don’t allow them to fly or change the weather or shape-shift or anything like that. Many of them have natural abilities supernaturally enhanced: being able to “read” thoughts by body language; recognizing intent in other so as to see the areas where one can move undetected; accurately interpreting the patterns of the stock market to the extent that they have to shut it down.
A most common trait is pattern recognition and this is the one possessed by protagonist Nick Cooper, a brilliant who has chosen to become a federal agent uniquely skilled at finding the more dangerous abnorms. He has dedicated his life to hunting terrorists and his gift has helped him to become very good at it. But predictably the narrative will find him seeing things from the other side and question which side he’s on, yada yada…
As I said, it’s not groundbreaking stuff, but that doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of it. The quality of the book lies in the telling. Sakey does a great job positing the necessary changes that these gifted individuals have affected upon the world and placing realistic human characters (whether brilliant or norm) in believable situations. The political realities, the social and personal elements are all well represented and examined here and it makes for good storytelling.
I enjoyed the author’s style. It does read a bit like a movie – it comes as absolutely no surprise whatsoever that this story has already been optioned for film – but I accept that as a reality of thrillers, which often feel aimed for the screen. The adjective cinematic is not supposed to be a criticism – I want to feel swept away. Brilliance mostly achieves this.
The book suffers a touch from being the first in a series – just in that you’re sort of anxious to get on with it – but I think that speaks more to the quality of the overall story than it suggests dissatisfaction with the novel itself. I’m writing this review after reading the first two books, so my perspective is necessarily skewed; I enjoyed the second novel heaps more and so I may be downgrading my assessment of Brilliance accordingly. It was a great book and obviously made me snap up the second in the series, so mission accomplished.
