An enthralling continuation of a nimble, ultra-chic SF series.
Aibo’s SF sequel focuses on a high-school student who may be the key to ending a war in a mysterious realm.
Most of Cythiria Crenshaw’s memories are absent. She has no idea where she got the two scars on her forehead, but she does know that intermittent blinding headaches accompany them. As such, she’s a loner who, on her first day of high school, would rather be anywhere else. She makes a friend and finds herself persuaded to join a gym outside of school. Gym owner Rive Amber has an ulterior agenda: She believes the girl is crucial to stopping the war in Griddish, a domed realm that’s essentially a hub used for monitoring variations of worlds, such as Cythiria’s planet, Farth (or, as it’s called in Griddish, Var 7). Meanwhile, over on Earth (aka Var 8), Matere Songgaard, formerly a scientist in Griddish, gets word of the conflict in his erstwhile realm. He opts to head that way to gather intelligence, using a “Slipshot” portal that he discovers is, rather unusually and unexpectedly, open. It’s not easy for others to get access to a Slipshot, but that’s just what Cythiria’s father Fredrick Munchen and her new friend Chelss Brimwater will need if they want to pull her away from Rive’s influence. In the midst of all this are the Griddish “Vérkatrae,” emotionless machines that serve a variety of functions. But if they’re so coldly mechanical, what explains the animal-like Vérkatros that Cythiria befriends (and names), or the one that morphs into a “human shape?”
Aibo’s series’ sophomore installment brings back a plethora of characters, including Fredrick and Cythiria’s mother, Jillian. Readers returning to the series will settle right back in, but those just joining will have no problem following the crisp narration. There’s mystery for series newbies and veterans alike—it’s not immediately apparent what the war entails, or what Cythiria can do to thwart it. The story smoothly transitions between worlds that share some similarities; Farth, for example, has a planetary ring but is otherwise akin to Earth. While the futuristic tech (such as the close-combat weapon called the Plaxis Strand) is compelling, this narrative’s human element stands out the most. (Cythiria is an angsty teen who warily opens up to Chelss (with the possibility of romance) and has a strained relationship with her mother Jillian, whom Cythiria noticeably does not call “Mom.”) Vibrant descriptions throughout bring even inanimate objects to life: “In the distance, a cluster of tall spike-shaped buildings reached towards the white sky. They looked broken, abandoned, eerie, a desolate cityscape that had been burnt and crushed by some unseen monster.” In the same vein, recurrent uses of onomatopoeia truly resonate, as in the “thump” of a heart, the “clang” of metals, and the “whoosh” of vehicles speeding past. As in the preceding installment, Sunada-Wong and Juarez’s colorful artwork includes individual character profiles and ravishing two-page spectacles, the highlight being a flat-bodied, spidery-legged Vérkatros whose multihued surface illuminates an awestruck Cythiria.
An enthralling continuation of a nimble, ultra-chic SF series.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9798987084540
Page Count: 351
Publisher: Mint Cookie Industries
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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