Overwritten, labored phrasing and problematic tropes burden this future-tech novel.
In this sci-fi novel set in the 35th century, a Galactic Interpol Society agent chases down a set of stolen codes that could leave an artificial planet open to invasion.
By the year 3421, humans coexist with the red-eyed novi, a people “originally born from enhanced industrialized pollutants.” The novi have colonized Earth’s Southern Hemisphere; slowly, the world is moving toward integration, but tensions still flare, especially at border cities. A third group of aliens from Planet Amephirous lives in small settlements on Earth and on Atlas, a new, artificial planet inhabited by members of all three cultures. This fragile peace is threatened by a power-seeking cabal whose chief members are an alien military officer and “underworld criminal”; a human politician; Jax, a novi terrorist and criminal; and Trigarous, a rogue human intelligence agent. They’re plotting to steal the codes for a security fail-safe program called RETROSPECT and use them to invade Atlas, jeopardizing all of its inhabitants. The group has power, money, connections, and highly developed skills—but they don’t have Jonah, a “top-priority special agent” for the Galactic Interpol Society. He’s tasked with investigating the conspiracy, preventing disaster, and rescuing a kidnapped ambassador. He’ll get help from Bot-21, a mobile AI unit, as well as an array of high-tech tools and weaponry—and he’ll need every advantage for what’s ahead of him. With his debut novel, DeMinico will appeal to readers who are intrigued by futuristic battles and gadgets. Both Jonah and Trigarous receive intriguing tactical goodies before starting their missions, and they use them to good effect; these elements, along with the novel’s many action sequences, are well-thought-out. However, the storytelling is greatly hampered by the tortured, sometimes-bizarre syntax that permeates the prose, such as “The other dwelled his interest elsewhere” and “her nose ejected its own variance of bodily tears.” Women also receive little representation, and one portrayal—of a “cute oriental woman,” who turns out to be an assassin named “Lady Crimson”—draws on stereotypes.
Overwritten, labored phrasing and problematic tropes burden this future-tech novel.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982220-19-8
Page Count: 362
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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