Not quite the wild ride of Skyward (2018) but still great fun.
As if the threat of huge, raging monsters from hyperspace isn’t scary enough, hotshot fighter pilot Spensa Nightshade becomes embroiled in an alien empire’s politics.
On a desperate mission to steal hyperdrive technology from the crablike invading Krell who are threatening to destroy her beleaguered home colony on Detritus, Spensa, who is white, holographically disguises herself as a violet-skinned UrDail and slips into a Krell pilot training program for “lesser species.” The discovery that she’s being secretly trained not to fight planet-destroying delvers but to exterminate humans, who are (with some justification, having kindled three interstellar wars in past centuries) regarded in certain quarters as an irrationally aggressive species, is just one in a string of revelations as, in between numerous near-death experiences on practice flights, she struggles to understand both her own eerie abilities and the strange multispecies society in which she finds herself. There are so many characters besides Spensa searching for self-identity—notably her comic-relief sidekick AI M-Bot, troubled human friend Jorgen back on Detritus, and Morriumur, member of a species whose color-marked sexes create trial offspring—that even with a plot that defaults to hot action and escalating intrigue the pacing has a stop and start quality. Still, Spensa’s habitual over-the-top recklessness adds a rousing spark, and the author folds in plenty of banter as well as a colorful supporting cast.
Not quite the wild ride of Skyward (2018) but still great fun. (Science fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-55581-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
In this Celtic-flavored crossover brick, four modern teenagers are summoned to another world to save it.
Borrowing freely from Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Irish legend in general, Ryan assembles orphaned Alan Duval (or “Duuuvaaalll,” as he is often dubbed by assailants), Kate, Mark, and Mark’s stammering, half-aboriginal sister, Mo, for a quest. He sends them to the magical world of Monisle, formerly known as Tír, where, 2,000 years after the last invasion attempt, the Tyrant of the Wastelands is sending out his Death Legions for a third time. Along with a prophecy, riddles, magical crystals, a giant eye and like standard-issue elements, the author folds in various nonhuman races. These range from the shape-changing Shee—being, as the author puts it with typical hyperbole, “Great cats turning into women, armed with swords!”—to the dwarven Fir Bolg, whose warriors are all long dead but not, climactically, gone. Amid many vague references to their “fate” and “destiny,” the four sail up the mighty titular river on a ship that turns out to be both sentient and a shape-changer itself to do battle with an army led one of the Tyrant’s Septemvile, or inner circle. The end is just as busy as the rest, leaving its heroes poised for sequels. The author doesn’t make much effort to look beyond the canonical bandwagon for inspiration. (Fantasy. 12-15)
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62365-048-3
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Mobius
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
Rushed but lush, with a nice touch of Victorian post-humanism for an original twist
The prize for saving the world is having to do it all over again in this companion to the steampunk romance The Unnaturalists (2012).
Syrus, Vespa, Olivia and Bayne are trying to rebuild their empire after destroying the Creeping Waste. Empress Olivia rules her fractured people of humans and Elementals from a ramshackle warehouse, while her devoted admirer, the Tinker Syrus, tries unsuccessfully to repair it. The magic users Bayne and Vespa try to help, even as they dance around their own romantic tensions. New villains threaten the fragile peace. From within, they’re challenged by Bayne’s estranged, noble parents, who may well be ignoring Olivia’s edict and using myth distilled from murdered Elementals to power their engines. From without, an ancient and legendary evil threatens: Ximu, Queen of the Shadowspiders. In interleaved chapters told from Syrus’ present-tense, first-person perspective alternating with Vespa’s past-tense, third-person point of view, the adventure unfolds with jumpy pacing but luscious worldbuilding. Nineteenth-century science has become religion in this fairyland full of airships and clockwork beasties. There are clear missed opportunities here: “What in the name of Darwin and all his Apes” is the point of bringing in such a famous eccentric as Nikola Tesla—famous for a hatred of round objects and an obsession with the number three—if only to portray him just as a generic genius?
Rushed but lush, with a nice touch of Victorian post-humanism for an original twist . (Steampunk. 13-15)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-5759-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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