Cyberpunk aficionados will enjoy this slick and highly readable tale.
Davidson’s debut series starter is an SF thriller that revolves around a young man with a mysterious background—and even more mysterious abilities.
The narrative is set in the near future of 2073 on the West Coast of a United States ravaged by ecological and economic disaster. San Francisco, for example, has been devastated by earthquakes and is now called Old Town, a lawless wasteland of “warring gangs, drug dealers, low-level mobsters, and sex peddlers.” Joshua Cabrera is the 24-year-old leader of the Epitaphs. They’re at the top of Old Town’s food chain, due in large part to their brilliant, tech-savvy members, who can hack into any site and have developed cutting-edge cybernetic, implanted wetware for their members. Under Joshua’s steady leadership, the gang is about to finish a multimillion-dollar deal to sell the Maelstrom, a seemingly unstoppable mind-linked weapon designed by Joshua and his best friend, Kevin Maitland, a developer who’s done revolutionary work in nanotech and neuroscience. But the deal goes bad, and Joshua and his crew become prime targets in the Nevada State Military Zone, run by tyrannical government agencies. Agent Vince Farrell’s mission is simple: locate Joshua and the revolutionary weapon at any cost. However, Joshua is much more than he seems—and his unexplainable enhancements may lead to greater revelations. This SF crime novel has a lot of noteworthy elements. The worldbuilding, for instance, is exceptional—even in the virtual realities that provide characters with entertainment—as is the fine pacing. There’s also an impressive amount of action and adventure as well as intricate plotting and detailed character development. Joshua, in particular, has significant depth that gives him the potential to carry multiple future installments. And the humor throughout is a definite plus; readers won’t soon forget an odd gag involving virtual chipmunks.
Cyberpunk aficionados will enjoy this slick and highly readable tale.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-9852207-2-8
Page Count: 409
Publisher: Destiny Engine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A huge, churning, relentlessly entertaining melodrama buoyed by confidence that human values will prevail.
A rare, rattling space opera—first of a trilogy, or series, from Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck).
Humanity colonized the solar system out as far as Neptune but then exploration stagnated. Straight-arrow Jim Holden is XO of an ice-hauler swinging between the rings of Saturn and the mining stations of the Belt, the scattered ring of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. His ship's captain, responding to a distress beacon, orders Holden and a shuttle crew to investigate what proves to be a derelict. Holden realizes it's some sort of trap, but an immensely powerful, stealthed warship destroys the ice-hauler, leaving Holden and the shuttle crew the sole survivors. This unthinkable act swiftly brings Earth, with its huge swarms of ships, Mars with its less numerous but modern and powerful navy, and the essentially defenseless Belt to the brink of war. Meanwhile, on the asteroid Ceres, cynical, hard-drinking detective Miller—we don't find out he has other names until the last few pages—receives orders to track down and "rescue"—i.e. kidnap—a girl, Julie Mao, who rebelled against her rich Earth family and built an independent life for herself in the Belt. Julie is nowhere to be found but, as the fighting escalates, Miller discovers that Julie's father knew beforehand that hostilities would occur. Now obsessed, Miller continues to investigate even when he loses his job—and the trail leads towards Holden, the derelict, and what might prove to be a horrifying biological experiment. No great depth of character here, but the adherence to known physical laws—no spaceships zooming around like airplanes—makes the action all the more visceral. And where Corey really excels is in conveying the horror and stupidity of interplanetary war, the sheer vast emptiness of space and the amorality of huge corporations.
A huge, churning, relentlessly entertaining melodrama buoyed by confidence that human values will prevail.Pub Date: June 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-12908-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
Punchy, plausible, and bittersweet; studded with zingers until the very last line.
The desperate logistics of planning for the apocalypse reach their climax in the conclusion to a space opera trilogy that began with The Collapsing Empire (2017) and The Consuming Fire (2018).
Time is running out for Cardenia Wu-Patrick, aka Grayland II, emperox of the planet-spanning Interdependency. As she struggles to come up with a plan to save the billions who will suffer and starve in the wake of the collapse of the Flow, the extradimensional network connecting the planets of her far-flung empire, her nemesis, Lady Nadashe Nohamapetan, continues to scheme against her. With the support of many of the noble houses—who plan to abandon their subjects while preserving themselves and their wealth in a flight to End, the only self-sufficient planet in the Interdependency—Nadashe now seeks the throne for herself. Meanwhile, Cardenia’s lover, the Flow physicist Lord Marce Claremont, attempts to devise a scientific solution to the Flow collapse, unaware that Cardenia is hiding vital data from him. And the clever but hot-tempered Lady Kiva Lagos attempts to spy on Nadashe in hopes of defusing the coup, but she may have gotten herself in too deep this time. Scalzi treads a delicate line here: He set out to chart an apocalypse, and a deus ex machina would be cheating. The book also serves as an acknowledgment that intelligence and good intentions are not an impregnable armor against venality and the pitiless laws of physics. (In addition to slowing down Scalzi's writing—something he acknowledges in an afterword—the current sociopolitical situation in the U.S. has clearly flavored the story.) Given those parameters, Scalzi plays fair while still offering his readers some hope. And even when depicting the direst situations, Scalzi’s work retains its snarky cheer.
Punchy, plausible, and bittersweet; studded with zingers until the very last line.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8916-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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