Brisk, entertaining supernatural romp.
A 13-year-old boy becomes a superpowered defender of planets throughout the universe in Royer’s debut novel, which launches an SF/adventure series.
When a new family moves to his North Carolina neighborhood, Aben Egole meets Nastera Roshen, a girl his age. She wastes no time in showcasing her supernatural abilities by teleporting Aben to planet Zonda. Nastera is there to recruit Aben to the Astroknights, a group that protects planets from foreign invaders. She furthermore activates his dormant powers, which stem from his mother, Marlya, who’s been MIA for nine years. Aben learns that not only is his mother an alien, but that she’s alive and well, safely residing on her home planet. Aben subsequently develops and hones such abilities as telepathy and flight. Soon joined by his father, Col. Ivory Egole, the teenager and his fellow Astroknights embark on missions to help others, confronting winged creatures and more. These missions play a part in creating the universe’s first alliance, the Fortress of Planets. An alliance, however, may not be possible as long as tyrannical Imperial Gen. Warnod and his warships remain a perpetual menace. Consequently, a battle between the Astroknights and Warnod may be unavoidable. Royer begins this novel full-tilt as Nastera introduces herself and then teleports Aben by the very next page. The novel covers a wide range of characters, planets, and subplots, including Astroknights’ training or undergoing specific missions. As such, action scenes are sometimes over too quickly. Nevertheless, myriad abilities are on display, like shape-shifting and invisibility. And while Aben harnesses incredible skills (e.g., creating a vortex), he’s a mostly relatable teen protagonist. He, for example, is not invulnerable, as he doesn’t win every confrontation, and Aben can be impetuous, putting himself at unnecessary risk by going off on his own.
Brisk, entertaining supernatural romp. (dedication, author bio)Pub Date: April 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5447-6218-0
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2020
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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