The magic lingers, even when the final chapters have already been written.
Another prequel (Sisterhood of Dune, 2012, etc.) piecing together the developments by which the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers, human-computer Mentats, legendary-warrior Swordmasters and interstellar navigators of the Spacing Guild created the universe of the original Dune.
Weak-minded, foolish Salvador of House Corrino relies on his more talented brother, Roderick, to help rule the Empire, little suspecting how powerless he really is. Dying Mother Superior Raquella labors to rebuild the Sisterhood School; her dearest wish is to heal the breach with the estranged Sisters who, led by Reverend Mother Dorotea, profess loyalty to House Corrino and to the Butlerian movement. However, Raquella’s probable successor, Valya Harkonnen, has placed personal concerns above the goals of the Sisterhood. Gilbertus Albans, head of the Mentat School, teaches his students to use their minds as efficiently as those of thinking machines. But Gilbertus (secretly, he keeps the brain of the evil thinking robot Erasmus in his office) has, perhaps fatally, compromised with the Butlerians. Led by the legless fanatic Manford Torondo and his Swordmaster Anari Idaho, the Butlerians have extended a not-unreasonable proscription on thinking machines into an unreasoning hatred of all technology, despite their own reliance upon it. Josef Venport, meanwhile, whose space transport fleet depends upon spice from Arrakis to produce foldspace Navigators, defies the loathed Butlerians by ruthlessly embargoing any planet that accepts Manford’s anti-technology pledge. Series fans know what to expect: adroit plotting, flat narration and intriguing if not quite fully believable characters (inevitably, the developing schools of thought assume greater importance than the individuals) maneuvering against a backdrop shaping itself into the vast, complex, fascinating Dune universe.
The magic lingers, even when the final chapters have already been written.Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2274-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fun, contemporary adventure that cares about who we are as humans, especially when faced with remarkable events.
A young graphic artist inspires worldwide hysteria when she accidentally makes first contact with an alien.
Famous multimedia wunderkind Green is brother to that John Green, so no pressure or anything on his debut novel. Luckily, he applies wit, affection, and cultural intelligence to a comic sci-fi novel suitable for adults and mature teens. It’s endearing how fully he occupies his narrator, a 20-something bi artist named April May who is wasting her youth slaving at a Manhattan startup. On her way home late one night, April encounters an armored humanoid figure, which turns out to be alien in nature—“And I don’t mean alien like ‘weird,’" she says. She phones her videographer friend Andy Skampt, who posts on YouTube a funny introduction to the robot she dubs Carl. April’s life is turned upside down when the video goes massively viral and immovable Carls appear in cities around the world. After they discover a complex riddle involving the Queen song “Don’t Stop Me Now,” the mystery becomes a quest for April; Andy; April’s roommate/kind-of-sort-of girlfriend, Maya; a scientist named Miranda; and April’s new assistant, Robin, to figure out what the Carls are doing here. “None of us older than twenty-five years old, cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard, planning our press strategy for the announcement of First Contact with a space alien,” says April. April and her friends are amiable goofballs and drawn genuinely for their age and time. Meanwhile, the story bobs along on adolescent humor and otherworldly phenomena seeded with very real threats, not least among them a professional hater named Peter Petrawicki and his feral followers. Green is clearly interested in how social media moves the needle on our culture, and he uses April’s fame, choices, and moral quandaries to reflect on the rending of social fabric. Fortunately, this entertaining ride isn’t over yet, as a cliffhanger ending makes clear.
A fun, contemporary adventure that cares about who we are as humans, especially when faced with remarkable events.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4344-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
Something for everyone: space combat, interpersonal tension, and aliens, ultimately leading to a story about survival.
A heavily armed starship heads into deep space to combat a race of alien invaders.
Australian author Barry (Lexicon, 2013, etc.) made his bones on satires of corporate life before diverging into fast-paced fantasy with his last offering. Seven years later, he swerves yet again into hard science fiction that bears influences from everything from Ender’s Game to The Martian to 2001: A Space Odyssey with a dash of Starship Troopers and the Alien franchise here and there. The title refers to a massive starship, the fifth of its kind, which has been dispatched to find and kill an invasive alien species known to most earthlings simply as “salamanders.” This follows a first-contact skirmish seven years earlier that left its survivors devastated and led Earth’s leadership to develop massive AI–driven ships designed for zero-casualty warfare. While Providence is a big ship, it has a small crew, consisting of commander Jolene Jackson, weapons specialist Paul Anders, life manager Talia Beanfield, and intelligence officer Isiah “Gilly” Gilligan, the civilian tasked to the starship by the Surplex corporation. They’re a diverse bunch, representing a lot of character tropes, from the square-jawed captain to the secretive madman to an unlikely survivor. Their current mission is to go into what the military terms the “Violet Zone,” a communications dead zone akin to Star Trek’s intergalactic nebulas. After a series of successful raids on the salamanders, things go awry when the ship’s AI starts malfunctioning and the enemy grows more tactical, ultimately forcing the crew to the surface of a planet where they’re forced not only to struggle to survive, but also to face their enemy instead of simply nuking them from orbit. (It’s the only way to be sure). Yes, the plot and the technology are lightly derivative of other works in the SF canon, but at least Barry is pinching all the cool stuff from the best influences.
Something for everyone: space combat, interpersonal tension, and aliens, ultimately leading to a story about survival.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08517-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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