A genre-blending adventure that, despite some lulls, pulls the reader through the pages.
Debut author Morris’ SF/fantasy novel follows an apprentice angel on a mission from God.
When Mara Angelica is called into God’s office, she is nervous. Mara is training to be an angel, and to complete a requirement called the Angelic Cycle, she must hunt and destroy a demon. Not just any demon, either: Mara is tasked with eliminating a particularly powerful foe named Arual. To complete the mission, she needs a team: Enter Qwag, a sassy warrior dwarf known for his blunt manners and fondness for chain mail. He accompanies Mara to Tijuana, Mexico, where they connect with Stacey, a shape-shifter who can take either a human form or that of a 60-pound bobcat. Mara insists that they also collect her old friend Tessa Delray, a seer and “concocter of powerful medicines.” Tessa has a gun-toting nephew named James who comes onboard along with Tessa’s cat, Larry. Finally, they are joined by Twilt Gensuri, who has long, thick green hair and hails from the small planet of Gnez. Braced for mayhem, the ragtag group races through the desert in a recently purchased Mercedes van; demons are out in the world, and they tend to be keen for a fight: “Qwag was up out of his tent and coming fast, blood dripping from a ragged wound low on his neck….The grisly chimera, all deep-set black eyes and wobbly mouth, was getting its short, stubby leg under it. It lifted one huge claw high into the air and lumbered forwards.” Throughout it all, Mara must always remember what she was taught: “to properly hunt a demon, one always looked for the advantage, no matter how slight.”
This multifaceted tale forces the reader to expect the unexpected, as the narrative consistently adds more twists. Despite the large ensemble cast and busy plot, the story proves easy to follow—regardless of the realm the characters traverse, there are demons about to provide violent conflict and be destroyed. The diverse team assembled for Mara allows for some welcome nuance, as not everyone involved is even attuned to the same God Mara serves; dwarves like Qwag, for instance, have their own deities (“[Mara] worked for Heaven, and she would serve her God well. But not everyone wanted to serve Him. That didn't make them evil”). A certain excessive chattiness does, however, dim the excitement over the course of the story. Characters tend to talk a lot, whether making bland proclamations (“Sometimes I feel like I am pressuring you just by being here”) or asking something inane (“Any suggestions?”). Such quotidian wordiness detracts from the overall wild, inhuman natures of the main players. Other scenes are slowed by dull details, such as how cooked bacon is divvied up among the group, or excitement over the prospect of hot baths, which sends one character “dancing around in a circle.” Still, the storytelling is undeniably creative. This lively mixture of science fiction, fantasy, and romance (angels, it turns out, are not above erotic pleasure) keeps the reader guessing without losing them in the shuffle. A genre-blending adventure that, despite some lulls, pulls the reader through the pages.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 297
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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