Uneven, but the quality improves as the story progresses.
Will Ritter continues the battle started in Rise of the Corpses (2011) to protect humanity from the corpse-possessing invaders from another dimension.
When a surveillance mission provides an opportunity to unearth a Corpse plot still in development, and with the new knowledge of how to use salt to kill the interdimensional invaders, the human Undertakers can take the offensive in their war over the world. To do this, they face the titular queen, sophisticated Lilith Cavanaugh, who has replaced the late Kenny Booth as the leader of the invaders. She blends a higher level of competence with a downright savage monstrosity, posing a much more pragmatic threat than Booth did. Alternating with Will's first-person narration, chapters written in third-person that focus on Lilith reveal more about the world the Corpses come from as well as their purpose. Lilith makes the fight personal for Will and in doing so, raises the stakes. While the first part of the story drags, near the end, a switch is flipped, and the story comes to life with a daring plan. Additional ponderings on corpse theft that go beyond gross-out descriptions, as well as the clear consequences of battle and lack of adult support, give moral and emotional dimensions to the otherwise straightforward story.
Uneven, but the quality improves as the story progresses. (Science fiction/horror. 10-15)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7557-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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