When The Children Come by Barry Kirwan

 

When The Children Come by Barry Kirwan.

Published 2nd December 2020.

From the cover of the book:

Nathan, emotionally scarred after three tours in Afghanistan, lives alone in Manhattan until New Year’s Eve, when he meets Lara. 

The next morning, he notices something strange is going on–a terrified kid is being pursued by his father, and a girl, Sally, pleads with Nathan to hide her from her parents. There is no internet, no television, no phone coverage.

Nathan, Lara and Sally flee along the East Coast, encountering madmen, terrorists, the armed forces, and other children frightened for their lives. The only thing Nathan knows for sure is that he must not fall asleep...

“A fantastic and original premise...flashes of Stephen King and MR Carey.”

Tom Witcomb

“A nicely taut thriller, with a Lee Child feel to its staccato writing and strong action sequences, and a high concept stretching the novel into true science fiction territory.”

Amanda Rutter

“Not just a page-turner–all in all a fabulous novel, which I was sad to finish.”

Loulou Brown

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When The Children Come, the first in a new series by Barry Kirwan, was a bit of a departure from my usual kind of sci-fi read, which normally comprises something about time travel, a full on space opera, a post-apocalyptic Dystopian nightmare, or a Black Mirror type mindbender. 

There is a space element, as you can tell from the cover, but this is more of drop you in at the beginning of a terrifying apocalyptic scenario - and what a scenario it is! I am not ashamed to say that this is just the kind of plot I find particularly disturbing actually, so there was an extra big dollop of the chills for me in this book.

It's pretty difficult to talk much about this one without giving away spoilers. Suffice to say, things get pretty bad for Nathan, Lara and Earth's children, along with the mixed bag of helpmates they pick up along the way, as they unexpectedly find themselves having to take on the role of saviours of humanity. 

There is action aplenty here, a nice bit of science and speculation, and a great theme of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", which I really enjoyed. It was also very pleasing to have a bevy of smart female characters in this book, rather than consigning them to the 'weak and wishy-washy/always needing to be rescued category', which sometimes happens in a sci-fi adventure - good work Mr Kirwan! The story is nicely paced with lots of suspense, and it kept my interest all the way through to the very end - with an intriguing hook into the next book too.

For me, there was a real feel of Scott Sigler about this one, and there are definite echoes of some well received sci-fi books and action films/TV series in these pages too, with an intriguing underlying premise that is very thought provoking. I can't wait to see what happens next!

When The Children Come is available to buy now using the following links:

Amazon UK          Amazon US

About the author:

Barry Kirwan was born in Farnborough and grew up watching the Red Arrow jet fighters paint the sky at air shows. 

He didn't get into writing until years later when he arrived in Paris, where he penned The Eden Paradox series (four books) over a period of ten years. 

His SF influences are Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, and Orson Scott Card, but also David Brin who writes about smart aliens. Iain Banks and Alistair Reynolds remain major influences, as well as Neal Asher, Peter F. Hamilton and Jack McDevitt. 

His main SF premise is that if we do ever meet aliens, they'll probably be far more intelligent than we are, and with very different values and ideas of how the galaxy works. As a psychologist by training, that interests him in terms of how to think outside our own (human) frame of reference.

When he is not writing, he's either working (his day job), which is preventing mid-air collisions, reading, or doing yoga or tai chi. When he's on holiday he's usually diving, looking for sharks. Most times he finds them, or rather, they find him.

Find out more about Barry Kirwan at:

Author's website                    Author's Facebook Page                    Author's Twitter