For all the special effects, a debut novel that’s lifeless and inert.
Superheroes square off against a supervillain in a high-tech fantasy.
Get ready to be bombarded by superlatives as the world’s leading supervillain, Doctor Impossible, introduces himself. He’s “the smartest man in the world” even though, right now, he’s in prison in Chicago. He narrates alternate chapters: The other narrator is Fatale, a female cyborg newly inducted into the Champions, the current superheroes. The dual narrator device leads to some initial confusion, as Grossman does not attempt two different voices. It will not be long before the Doctor escapes and tries for the 13th time to conquer the world. His nemesis, dating back to their Harvard days as science students, is CoreFire, who has gone missing. The other superheroes are a mixed bunch. They include an old-school magician, a fairy from the 12th century and a former villain from the 35th century. Their preferred costumes are capes, cloaks and leotards, accessorized with the latest gadgetry, but they’re all dressed up with nowhere to go. As the Doctor gathers the four objects he needs for his doomsday machine, the superheroes spend their time yakking, recalling past exploits and indulging in flip commentary. Their history adds little to the storyline. There are only two action scenes. The first confrontation occurs past the novel’s midpoint, in the aftermath of CoreFire’s memorial service (there’s a mystery as to who killed him). The Doctor attends the service without his habitual disguise. The legendary Blackwolf spots him, and they fight in the sewers of Manhattan; the Doctor escapes in a submarine. The second, climactic confrontation, as the Doctor is about to inaugurate a new Ice Age, is equally unimpressive, interrupted by more talk as the fairy describes her origins; the battle seesaws in an arbitrary fashion.
For all the special effects, a debut novel that’s lifeless and inert.Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-375-42486-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
Fans will love the second installment of this dark fantasy about very human characters beset by inhuman dangers.
When the world changes, will you change with it?
A boy who takes pleasure in causing pain meets a monster who can teach him to do much more. A Soulkeeper puts his reputation on the line to stop the abuse of soulless humans—while concealing his relationship with an "awakened" formerly soulless woman. A religious woman given unimaginable power over human souls by a monster struggles to determine right from wrong, faith from blasphemy. In a world where mountains walk, prayers can change the physical world, and magical creatures like talking rabbit-soldiers have awoken from a centurieslong slumber, no choice is simple. The Soulkeeper Devin has chosen to befriend creatures like the faery Tesmarie while his spellcasting brother-in-law, Tommy, believes the newly awakened magical creatures have as much right to the land as humans do. In a time when most humans are reacting with fear and anger to their changing world, seeing the world in shades of gray can be dangerous. Meanwhile, Devin’s sister, Adria, finds that her new powers are testing her faith and bringing up questions she’d rather not confront. As new magical threats to the human population arise, all of these characters will be pushed to their limits, and the decisions they make may determine the fate of humanity. Picking up where Soulkeeper (2019) left off, this second book in a planned trilogy raises the stakes for every character, complicating the moral choices they face. The plot rockets along from one magical battle to the next, but Dalglish deftly weaves in rich character development alongside all this action.
Fans will love the second installment of this dark fantasy about very human characters beset by inhuman dangers.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-41669-6
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Smart, funny, humane, and superbly well-written.
A post-apocalyptic—and pre-apocalyptic—debut.
It’s 2011, if not quite the 2011 you remember. Candace Chen is a millennial living in Manhattan. She doesn’t love her job as a production assistant—she helps publishers make specialty Bibles—but it’s a steady paycheck. Her boyfriend wants to leave the city and his own mindless job. She doesn’t go with him, so she’s in the city when Shen Fever strikes. Victims don’t die immediately. Instead, they slide into a mechanical existence in which they repeat the same mundane actions over and over. These zombies aren’t out hunting humans; instead, they perform a single habit from life until their bodies fall apart. Retail workers fold and refold T-shirts. Women set the table for dinner over and over again. A handful of people seem to be immune, though, and Candace joins a group of survivors. The connection between existence before the End and during the time that comes after is not hard to see. The fevered aren’t all that different from the factory workers who produce Bibles for Candace’s company. Indeed, one of the projects she works on almost falls apart because it proves hard to source cheap semiprecious stones; Candace is only able to complete the contract because she finds a Chinese company that doesn’t mind too much if its workers die from lung disease. This is a biting indictment of late-stage capitalism and a chilling vision of what comes after, but that doesn’t mean it’s a Marxist screed or a dry Hobbesian thought experiment. This is Ma’s first novel, but her fiction has appeared in distinguished journals, and she won a prize for a chapter of this book. She knows her craft, and it shows. Candace is great, a wonderful mix of vulnerability, wry humor, and steely strength. She’s sufficiently self-aware to see the parallels between her life before the End and the pathology of Shen Fever. Ma also offers lovely meditations on memory and the immigrant experience.
Smart, funny, humane, and superbly well-written.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-26159-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
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