Engaging characters spearhead a vastly entertaining cross-genre tale.
A devastated kingdom prepares to battle a brutal approaching army in this third installment of Gurgu’s dystopian SF series.
Geo Woodman is the reigning prince of the Silkers kingdom, part of a world that the Black Rains have ravaged. (The Rains turned water into a gel that corroded the flesh of people now called Corrosives.) Geo hopes to bring the city of Torono, which is a veritable “carcass,” back to the flourishing place it once was. But a more pressing issue is the threat of Han the Great, who leads a massive army aimed at Torono. Among his many soldiers are powerful shape-shifting beings—Dreams and the much more vicious Nightmares, which far outnumber the ones in the Silkers kingdom. Geo and others get a taste of the coming battle when invaders raid the city. Meanwhile, Princess Bree, a scientist, looks into the children who’ve been “journeying,” flying (both mentally and, more dangerously, physically) into the pink-clouded sky and well beyond. Gurgu’s series has taken an intriguing route; it began as apocalyptic SF and has gradually incorporated dark fantasy elements. This installment shuffles engaging characters and subplots, from a young man leaving his village and getting caught up with drug dealers to a mysterious sickness showing no signs of slowing down. The narrative threads all intersect in some capacity by the end, with Han’s army remaining an ever-present menace. The author, who excels at crafting gleefully bizarre images, doesn’t disappoint here: there is a colossal stag beetle, Dreams and Nightmares cocoon themselves, and even the general landscape makes an impression (“Morning crept over the ruins’ walls and glass with smudges of pink. It stretched like blood creeping into the night’s darkness”). The gratifying final act offers a worthy resolution with just a hint as to the direction a sequel might take.
Engaging characters spearhead a vastly entertaining cross-genre tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9781738659364
Page Count: 353
Publisher: Kult Books
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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