Preposterous plotting, laughably bad prose: “As I reformed, refinements added to my body and mind like translucent layers of...
The seventh volume in Asaro’s Skolian space opera has less sex and sadism than previous outings (The Quantum Rose, 2000, etc.) as Dyhianna Selei, a telepathic psychic-webmaster and Pharaoh of the Ruby Dynasty, brokers an uncertain peace with the vile, slave-keeping Aristo Traders. The Radiance War has ended with the galaxy of human-inhabited planets more or less in tatters and both the Skolians and Traders claiming victory. The titular heads of both empires are dead, with rivals lining up to continue hostilities, when Dyhianna literally appears out of thin air on a planet inhabited by humans who look like walking trees. Exactly how she got to this planet she can barely remember–just as the Traders were about to annihilate her family, she, with her husband Prince Eldrin and son Taquinil, somehow transformed themselves into “Kyle space” and escaped into the psychic-Internet that Dyhianna, who is also a genius mathematician, invented. After a tree man almost rapes her (but gives up because he has a kind heart), Dyhianna eludes a pack of torture-hungry Trader soldiers by vomiting on them. She makes her presence known and is whisked away to a Skolian battle cruiser, where she discovers that the psychic-Internet no longer exists, but that the Traders possess her husband, whose psychic abilities, when combined with an ancient device called a Lock, might give the Traders supremacy. Then Dyhianna notices that her ex-husband, Seth Rockworth, living on Earth, has been taking care of a peculiar bunch of kids whose features suggest that they may be offspring of the dead Skolian Imperator Sauscony “Soz” Lahaylia and the Trader Emperor Jaibriol Qox. Can Dyhianna get these kids, one of whom appears to have already assumed power over Traders, to make love, not war?
Preposterous plotting, laughably bad prose: “As I reformed, refinements added to my body and mind like translucent layers of watercolor paint laid over a picture.” For fans only.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-89063-X
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
A new series starts off with a bang.
A queen and her young daughter are forced to separate and go into hiding when a corrupt politician tries to take over the kingdom.
Queen Cressa of Weirandale is worried about her 8-year-old daughter, the “princella” Cerúlia. The people of Weirandale worship a water spirit, Nargis, who grants each queen a special gift called a Talent. Cressa herself is able to meddle with memories, for example, and her mother possessed supernatural strategic abilities that served her well in battle. Cerúlia, however, appears to have none, because surely her insistence that she can talk to animals is only her young imagination running wild. When Cerúlia’s many pets warn her about assassins creeping into the royal chambers, the girl is able to save herself and her mother. Cressa uses her Talent, which actually extends to forcing anyone to tell her the truth, to root out traitors among the aristocracy, led by the power-hungry Lord Matwyck. Fearing for her daughter’s life and her own, Cressa takes Cerúlia and flees. Thinking Cerúlia will be safer away from her mother, Cressa takes the girl to a kind peasant family and adjusts their memories so they believe Cerúlia is their adopted daughter. Kozloff’s debut is the first of four Nine Realms books, and Tor plans to publish them over just four months. Luckily, the series opener is a strong start, so readers will be grateful for the short wait before Book 2. Kozloff sets a solid stage with glimpses into other characters and nations while keeping the book together with a clear, propulsive plot.
A new series starts off with a bang.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16854-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
This brilliant bit of nihilism succeeds where so many self-described transgressive novels do not: It's dangerous because...
Brutal and relentless debut fiction takes anarcho-S&M chic to a whole new level—in a creepy, dystopic, confrontational novel that's also cynically smart and sharply written.
Palahniuk's insomniac narrator, a drone who works as a product recall coordinator, spends his free time crashing support groups for the dying. But his after-hours life changes for the weirder when he hooks up with Tyler Durden, a waiter and projectionist with plans to screw up the world—he's a "guerilla terrorist of the service industry." "Project Mayhem" seems taken from a page in The Anarchist Cookbook and starts small: Durden splices subliminal scenes of porno into family films and he spits into customers' soup. Things take off, though, when he begins the fight club—a gruesome late-night sport in which men beat each other up as partial initiation into Durden's bigger scheme: a supersecret strike group to carry out his wilder ideas. Durden finances his scheme with a soap-making business that secretly steals its main ingredient—the fat sucked from liposuction. Durden's cultlike groups spread like wildfire, his followers recognizable by their open wounds and scars. Seeking oblivion and self-destruction, the leader preaches anarchist fundamentalism: "Losing all hope was freedom," and "Everything is falling apart"—all of which is just his desperate attempt to get God's attention. As the narrator begins to reject Durden's revolution, he starts to realize that the legendary lunatic is just himself, or the part of himself that takes over when he falls asleep. Though he lands in heaven, which closely resembles a psycho ward, the narrator/Durden lives on in his flourishing clubs.
This brilliant bit of nihilism succeeds where so many self-described transgressive novels do not: It's dangerous because it's so compelling.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03976-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
BOOK TO SCREEN
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