A somewhat restrained but sturdy tale; deep-space Game of Thrones lite.
As paranoid King Harad of the planet Vacaron moves to eliminate a long-lost prince who threatens his reign, complications arise from a group of Earth explorers that the monarch holds hostage.
On Vacaron, the long-tailed beings of the same name are intelligent, spacefaring, and humanoid, but they maintain a feudal-monarchy warrior culture. The ruling Vacaron, King Harad, came to power via treachery, and now he moves to eliminate the rightful heir to the throne, long-hidden teenage Prince Avhor, dwelling as a boy named Urvak, unaware of his heritage. As Harad strikes, Urvak/Avhor falls in with a long-simmering Resistance movement whose secret members reach into the palace. But there is another complication: years earlier, Harad “welcomed” an exploration team of four earthlings who have since been confined to the king’s private “zoo” as a state secret. Now one of the astronauts, Mike Bearborn, has been freed by the Resistance and faces painful choices involving saving his remaining crew members or betraying Avhor. What little a reader gleans of the humans comes across as distinctly Starfleet-like in their ostensibly peaceful military-scientific deep-space mission (except one likes to think James T. Kirk wouldn’t countenance misplacing four vital crew members for a couple of years). But the focus is on the Vacaron civilization, scientifically advanced yet flirting with the Dark Ages on a societal level. Ditchek’s debut novel isn’t the first sci-fi work to offer a first-contact narrative distinctly from the point of view of the aliens. But the author brings off the switcheroo with solid storytelling sense and pacing. The Vacaron hold reader interest, although they are not especially groundbreaking in terms of species details, customs, or concept, and they lack the cathartic sense of fierce warrior ethics and theatrical bloodlust of Star Trek’s cult-cherished Klingons (one senses the writer not wanting to get any sword arms too dirty in the sadism department). The narrative voice is well-addressed to both YA and undemanding adult readerships, without condescension. The author promises a sequel.
A somewhat restrained but sturdy tale; deep-space Game of Thrones lite.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5049-6934-5
Page Count: 292
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.
Second part of an alien-contact trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, 2014) from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In the previous book, the inhabitants of Trisolaris, a planet with three suns, discovered that their planet was doomed and that Earth offered a suitable refuge. So, determined to capture Earth and exterminate humanity, the Trisolarans embarked on a 400-year-long interstellar voyage and also sent sophons (enormously sophisticated computers constructed inside the curled-up dimensions of fundamental particles) to spy on humanity and impose an unbreakable block on scientific advance. On Earth, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization formed to help the invaders, despite knowing the inevitable outcome. Humanity’s lone advantage is that Trisolarans are incapable of lying or dissimulation and so cannot understand deceit or subterfuge. This time, with the Trisolarans a few years into their voyage, physicist Ye Wenjie (whose reminiscences drove much of the action in the last book) visits astronomer-turned-sociologist Luo Ji, urging him to develop her ideas on cosmic sociology. The Planetary Defense Council, meanwhile, in order to combat the powerful escapist movement (they want to build starships and flee so that at least some humans will survive), announces the Wallfacer Project. Four selected individuals will be accorded the power to command any resource in order to develop plans to defend Earth, while the details will remain hidden in the thoughts of each Wallfacer, where even the sophons can't reach. To combat this, the ETO creates Wallbreakers, dedicated to deducing and thwarting the plans of the Wallfacers. The chosen Wallfacers are soldier Frederick Tyler, diplomat Manuel Rey Diaz, neuroscientist Bill Hines, and—Luo Ji. Luo has no idea why he was chosen, but, nonetheless, the Trisolarans seem determined to kill him. The plot’s development centers on Liu’s dark and rather gloomy but highly persuasive philosophy, with dazzling ideas and an unsettling, nonlinear, almost nonnarrative structure that demands patience but offers huge rewards.
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7708-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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