A satisfying series spinoff that suggests it takes a space-village to raise a child.
On a struggling human-colonized planet in the 22nd century, a puzzling death complicates local political machinations.
Alexander’s SF yarn is a sideways sequel to his Murder Under Another Sun (2022), part of the Leif the Lucky series. Heaven is the name of one of Earth’s few colonized planets—a temperate world that can tentatively support human life, though it’s missing a few key nutrients (“the high concentration of carbon dioxide in the air played tricks with a human’s mind”). An international expedition of settlers on Heaven included a restless mix of fortune-seekers, scientists, idealists, scoundrels, and paroled criminals. No new supply ships have arrived for many years (readers of the series know that after widespread cyber-warfare, the Earth has backslid into primitivism), and the few hundred colonists struggle with limited resources, internal division, and resentments over their quasi-socialist economic system. A fresh generation of colonial children is similarly unruly—after a drug-fueled evening, one teenage boy is found dead, cause unknown. Thorny, a smart but temperamental and unpopular girl (whose father is a notorious former assassin with unique access to the colony’s supply of guns), was the last in his company, and she flees the settlement in a rare powered vehicle. Her classmate Danijel, secretly her ardent admirer, protectively follows Thorny to the planet’s unexplored south. Meanwhile, unscrupulous adults mobilize into factions to exploit the drama for their own agendas in advance of a looming election. Alexander’s slow-burning, assured storytelling nicely hybridizes elements of SF, coming-of-age YA narratives, and police procedurals. Many readers may be reminded of the dynamics of Wild West literature as the isolated frontier society of Heaven wrestles with questions of justice, intolerance, self-rule, and revenge. The author’s longstanding thematic elements will resonate as the amoral and the ambitious exploit their minions (at least one villain has Trump-like attributes) and play their psychological games as a precious few try to behave morally and ethically. The narrative also effectively drives home the point that raising teenagers can be just as dicey as fighting off an insurrection.
A satisfying series spinoff that suggests it takes a space-village to raise a child.Pub Date: April 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798990585348
Page Count: 406
Publisher: Alton Kremer
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.
Like a truck with no brakes speeding down a steep mountain road, Islington’s latest is an adrenaline-fueled SF thrill ride that follows a biomechanically enhanced assassin as he tries to understand his mysterious origins.
The chaotic opening scene gives readers a clear indication of what they’re in for: Contract killer Azure, attempting to complete a mission, is involved in a life-or-death battle with a multieyed biomachine called an Argos. “The thing’s bipedal but has six gorilla-like arms that end in half-metre-long claws,” he complains. After Azure barely dispatches the monster and kills his target, his AI assistant, Atti, informs him of his next job: protecting an elderly—and incredibly rich—woman living in a sprawling underground bunker in the middle of nowhere. “Old Woman,” as Azure calls her, isn’t forthcoming with personal details; all Azure can suss out is that she may be the target of a powerful organized crime syndicate—the same organization that employs him! Is Azure’s ultimate goal to save her or kill her? Although the worldbuilding could’ve been more comprehensive, Islington’s editing choices are brilliant—he strips away the insignificant narrative content to create a streamlined, action-packed adventure with seemingly one goal: to keep the reader furiously turning pages. The various mysteries—Azure’s murky beginnings, the tragic death of his best friend years earlier, Old Woman’s true identity, etc.—maintain the momentum and intensity. The takeaway here is the narrative potential of the characters as well as the plethora of subjects that could be explored more deeply, like immortality for the rich, cloning, and the potential to create bioengineered nightmares for “security.” Islington leaves the conclusion tantalizingly ambiguous. This novel could be the jumping-off point for a memorable series.
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781668239247
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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