An ambitious, ardent launch that sets a stellar precedent for installments to follow.
In Rogers’ debut, the first book of a planned sci-fi series, a prime minister’s daughter may be the key to evading an interstellar war.
Davin and the crew of his Orionite scavenger ship, the Fossa, are searching for goods aboard a destroyed yacht in the Carina Arm of the Milky Way. Quite unexpectedly, they find a “preserve bag” containing the vessel’s sole survivor, Sierra, who happens to be Carinian Prime Minister Elan Falco’s daughter. Davin sees the chance for profit if the PM is willing to offer compensation for Sierra’s safe return. Unfortunately, a message verifying Sierra’s safety doesn’t get through, and she’s presumed by the PM to be dead. Sierra believes that Carinian religious zealots, known as the Abramists, attacked her yacht and made it appear that Sagittarians were responsible. The Abramists, it seems, are trying to convince Falco to declare war against the Sagittarians. Meanwhile, the Sagittarian leader, the iron-fisted Zantorian, sends his newly appointed champion, Kastor, to subdue Radovan, the apparently weak ruler of the planet Upraad. But Radovan won’t budge, and Kastor gets caught in the middle of a commoner uprising that sparks a civil war in the Lagoon Nebula. Davin could possibly secure peace in the galaxy if he gets Sierra back to her father, or he and his crew could sell Sierra to someone else and live in luxury, practically guaranteeing a galactic war. This solid series opener establishes an epic tale of conflict in the Milky Way. It has its share of action but also excels at scenes of politicking, as in a scene in which Kastor tells Radovan to swear allegiance to Zantorian. The narrative primarily centers on the Fossa crew and Kastor, but it also introduces a wealth of subplots that are sure to be expanded in later books. Earth, for example, is the titular sacred planet that some believe is the “linchpin” to controlling the galaxy. Rogers’ version of the future comes complete with recognizable gadgets, such as touch-screen tablets, as well as new, chic technology; the best examples are “transapiens”—human brains in robotic bodies that communicate nonverbally by using the NeuroNet.
An ambitious, ardent launch that sets a stellar precedent for installments to follow.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5371-6630-8
Page Count: 366
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 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
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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