A thrilling SF tale driven by likable outlaw heroes.
Flakus, in his self-described “latinopunk” novella, crafts a cyberpunk adventure about a cybernetically enhanced outlaw on a distant planet.
Ryu Ruiz is a “runner—a cybernetically enhanced outlaw who harvests and transports Starflesh, a mysterious fungus with mystical hallucinogenic properties that transforms its users mentally, but also physically. For example, one prominent user’s “hair fell out, leaving him completely bald. He looked ten years younger…. His skin became a golden color which seemed to emanate a soft light in complete darkness.” Running is incredibly dangerous, and police patrol the city of Cuetlaxochitl, the seedy major port city on the remote and dangerous planet Xochipili, the only place in the galaxy where Starflesh grows. Xochipili's history as a penal colony for undocumented immigrants on Earth makes the far-flung futuristic galactic setting feel immediately timely and relevant. Ryu runs Starflesh both because it’s his only career option and because he’s in love with Miriam, the head of the runners’ guild. Her bar, the Dos Santos Cantina, conceals the Chicxulub, the eponymous spaceship that Miriam plans to use to return to Earth after one last big score. The book, which is deeply infused with Latine language and culture, is at its best when it follows Ryu's thrilling exploits, his simmering relationship with Miriam, and his friendship with fellow runner Felix. It’s slightly less effective, though, in an extended digression told from the perspective of John Praetor, a police officer from Earth who’s come to enforce the law on Xochipili because of the promise of a big payday. Luckily, the plot quickly returns to the runners and their richly drawn world with its own complex culture and struggles. As the story bounces deftly from SF to action-oriented thrills and eventually a kind of transcendent mysticism, Flakus maintains a strong narrative voice and a clear vision, and shows deep care for these characters and their relationships along the way. The result satisfies all the expectations of the genre while feeling wholly original and exciting. Readers who enjoy exciting actioners set in unique but still recognizable futuristic settings will find a lot to like here.
A thrilling SF tale driven by likable outlaw heroes.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2025
ISBN: 9798893247756
Page Count: 95
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.
Having survived a disastrous deep space mission in 2038, three asteroid miners plan a return to their abandoned ship to save two colleagues who were left behind.
Though bankrolled through a crooked money laundering scheme, their original project promised to put in place a program to reduce the CO2 levels on Earth, ease global warming, and pave the way for the future. The rescue mission, itself unsanctioned, doesn't have a much better chance of succeeding. All manner of technical mishaps, unplanned-for dangers, and cutthroat competition for the precious resources from the asteroid await the three miners. One of them has cancer. The international community opposes the mission, with China, Russia, and the United States sending questionable "observers" to the new space station that gets built north of the moon for the expedition. And then there is Space Titan Jack Macy, a rogue billionaire threatening to grab the riches. (As one character says, "It's a free universe.") Suarez's basic story is a good one, with tense moments, cool robot surrogates, and virtual reality visions. But too much of the novel consists of long, sometimes bloated stretches of technical description, discussions of newfangled financing for "off-world" projects, and at least one unneeded backstory. So little actually happens that fixing the station's faulty plumbing becomes a significant plot point. For those who want to know everything about "silicon photovoltaics" and "orthostatic intolerance," Suarez's latest SF saga will be right up their alley. But for those itching for less talk and more action, the book's many pages of setup become wearing.
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18363-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Elegiac and elliptical, this slim novel is a sobering read.
Six astronauts on a space station orbit the planet over the course of a single Earth day.
Two hundred and fifty miles above the Earth, a space station goes round and round. Over the course of 24 hours, the astronauts inside experience sunrise and sunset 16 times. Though they're supposed to keep their schedules in tune with a normal “daily” routine, they exist in a dream-like liminal space, weightless, out of time, captivated and astonished by the “ringing singing lightness” of the globe always in view. “What would it be to lose this?” is the question that spurs Harvey’s nimble swoops and dives into the minds of the six astronauts (as well as a few of the earthbound characters, past and present). There are gentle eddies of plot: The Japanese astronaut, Chie, has just received word that her elderly mother has died; six other astronauts are currently on their way to a moon landing; a “super-typhoon” barrels toward the Philippines; one of the two cosmonauts, Anton, has discovered a lump on his neck. But overall this book is a meditation, zealously lyrical, about the profundity and precarity of our imperiled planet. It’s surely difficult to write a book in which the main character is a giant rock in space—and the book can feel ponderous at times, especially in the middle—but Harvey’s deliberate slowed-down time and repetitions are entirely the point. Like the astronauts, we are forced to meditate on the notion that “not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s…a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre.” Is this a crisis or an opportunity? Harvey treats this question as both a narrative and an existential dilemma.
Elegiac and elliptical, this slim novel is a sobering read.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780802161543
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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