SCI FI REVIEWS ENORMITY

Sci Fi Magazine (SyFy Network) Book Review:

ENORMITY by W.G. Marshall

Rating: A

Enormity by W.G. Marshall is an entirely gonzo concoction about the sad plight of one Manny Lopes, an unassuming American working in Korea who for reasons that go along with the usual amount of super-scientific hand-waving usually required with premises like this, is enlarged to a height of about one-mile. The square-cube law that would normally cause him to collapse and liquefy under his own weight is brought up, just to show that the author is familiar with it, and then waved away, just to make the story possible; and we’re left with the comical and terrifying predicament of a guy so enormous that he lays waste to the countryside not just by moving, but also by sitting, sleeping, evacuating, or even by standing still (as the tiny organisms that live on human skin have also been enlarged, and drop off him to wreak havoc of their own.)

It’s literally a novel of epic scale, both micro (the troubles of a terrified un-enlarged girlfriend who spends days clinging to one of the lesser hairs in Manny’s eyebrow) and macro (the vast geological damage caused by not one, but two, mile-high people, causing massive tsunami and vaporizing entire cities with every step). Next to Manny, and the fanatical North Korean woman who is his equally enlarged opposite number, Godzilla and King Kong were minor nuisances, easily dispensed with. The prose is a hoot, and the climactic confrontation in the Grand Canyon—which to our pair of battling giants is only about as deep as an open grave—is worth the wait. Check out enormity for a worldwide cataclysm that’ll never stop surprising you with its audacity.