Engagingly motley characters and intergalactic action fuel this quick, entertaining read.
In Dodge’s debut SF novel, a pizza delivery driver may be the only one who can protect the universe from diabolical creatures.
Charlie Cooper can repair anything he touches, but delivering pizzas in Romeo, Michigan, doesn’t afford the 21-year-old many opportunities to show off his skills. He develops inventions in his spare time, though he’s had very little success. His latest involves a magnetron he’s pulled from a microwave and an audio capacitor that he’s been saving up for. Finally testing his invention leads to an explosion that creates a “hole in the air” that somehow engulfs Charlie. He turns up again inside the Echo Vale, a spaceship that’s been sitting in a void for 179 Earth years. SARA-7, the ship’s artificial intelligence, has been waiting for a signal: the “pulse” that Charlie’s invention emitted. Echo Vale’s previous commander assured SARA-7 that whoever matches a specific genetic profile(as Charlie does) will be the “only one who could succeed.” But what exactly is Charlie’s mission? It’s not long before he has an unnerving encounter with one of the Death Bringers, hollow-eyed, sinister creatures that threaten all life. That’s what he’s up against, and while he doesn’t have tactical or piloting skills, he has the spaceship’s Echo Core; with an established Echo Point, the Core can “reset” the timeline, should Charlie fail in battle. Charlie gradually puts together a crew, including Threx, a warmhearted being with gills and webbed fingers, and gray-skinned Kepper Ty, an ostensibly reformed criminal.
Dodge’s tale isn’t quite as buoyant as the premise may suggest. Charlie, who lives with a single mother who works long, hard hours at a local diner, is a grounded hero who struggles to prove himself and is still unsure about what he wants to do with his life. The Echo Core proves to be a grim element in the story; the resets happen after Charlie and others die multiple deaths that only SARA-7 remembers. Once Charlie’s aboard the Echo Vale, the narrative deftly mingles everyday circumstances with its SF setting—in one scene, Charlie is simply refueling the ship and stocking up on supplies when he meets Threx and ends up facing off against a gang of reptilian thieves. The technology introduced throughout the narrative is intriguing, such as the translation matrix in Charlie’s environmental suit that allows him to converse with different species speaking assorted languages. Action scenes come in welcome bursts as Charlie and the crew undergo training in simulations and battle the imposing Death Bringers. The story provides some mystery; readers learn about alternate versions of SARA, both updated and seemingly outmoded, and get a touch of insight into the Echo Vale’s former crew before the ship’s 179-year waiting period in the void. The descriptions are occasionally sparse, but they’re never confusing, and they aid in ramping up the pace: “Charlie studied the display, his eyes tracing over the five seats on the command deck. His own was in the center, Threx at tactical. The other three were empty, waiting.”
Engagingly motley characters and intergalactic action fuel this quick, entertaining read.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9798999523402
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.
When a bunch of corporate assholes mark their planet for destruction, a garage band of colonists must defend their home world with the power of rock.
Slightly sidestepping his frenetic litRPG—literary role-playing game—doorstoppers, here Dinniman takes on capitalism, propaganda, xenophobia, and violence as entertainment. Thankfully for readers, it’s all wrapped in the usual profane, adolescent humor, and SF readers will have a ball. A couple of hundred years after they left Earth, the inhabitants of the interstellar colony of New Sonora weren’t expecting much in the way of new threats, especially after a mysterious illness killed almost everyone between the ages of 30 and 60. That disaster left only the young and the old on the populated planet, where farming is enabled by highly accelerated AI and people are generally cool with each other. But when drummer Oliver Lewis stumbles across a foul-mouthed killer mech piloted by a child, he realizes that something’s definitely fishy. Earth, it seems, has classified the New Sonorans as non-human and scheduled their destruction as a paid, five-day combat game. Apex Industries, led by lead mercenary Eli Opel, has reverse-engineered Ender’s Game and is turning loose its players with real bullets and bombs on the population of New Sonora. The resistance is a weird bunch, led by proto-slacker Oliver; his little sister, Lulu; and his ex-girlfriend, documentary filmmaker and burgeoning revolutionary Rosita Zapatero, as well as the other members of Oliver’s band, the Rhythm Mafia. Thankfully, they also have Roger, the last functioning AI on the planet, though Oliver’s grandfather permanently programmed it to nannybot mode as a dying joke. Call the book overlong—the battle scenes often feel like watching someone play a videogame—but the humor and the execution are cutting without being mean and there’s almost always a point.
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9780593820308
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.
The first installment of Liu’s Julia Z saga is an SF thriller set in a near-future “post-truth age” where the use of AI and the inundation of digital disinformation and data pollution have blurred the lines between delusion and reality.
Julia—whose immigrant mother, a divisive political activist, was murdered during a border protest—has lived on her own since she was 14. A brilliant hacker now 23, she’s been trying to live in online anonymity, acutely aware of the multitude of ways she can be identified and tracked. Living in a Boston suburb and struggling to make ends meet, she inadvertently becomes entangled with a lawyer named Piers Neri and his search for his artist wife, Elli Krantz—famous for her experimental work in vivid dreaming—who may or may not have been kidnapped. A prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance, Piers goes on the run with the help of Julia—and together, they begin putting together pieces of a mind-bogglingly intricate puzzle that links Elli to a powerful criminal with a global reach. As Julia digs deeper into the appeal of vivid dreaming and the criminal’s ruthless endeavors, she discovers the sham that is the American Dream: “America was corrupt and steeped in sin. The powerful had rigged the game for themselves and turned the country into a panopticon to imprison the rest of us. Anytime one of the powerless—it didn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you spoke, the place you were born in—was on the verge of climbing out, they would be ruthlessly tossed back into the pit.” And amid the backdrop of dealing with unresolved childhood trauma and the need to find her place in the world, she finds something unexpected—herself.
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781668083178
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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