Imaginative flourishes perk up old tropes in Roselle’s debut novel, a slowly wheeling blend of intrigue, teen drama, fantasy and fun.
The Cobalt Domain, a magical land separate from yet linked to our own, is divided into nine distinct, color-coded “Darus.” Milo Davenport has spent her life studying them, looking for a way to get back to our world. She’s on her way to find a gateway home when the Yellow Daru is disturbed by the arrival of Cassandra “Casey” Campbell. The Cobalt Domain has been unstable since a despot named Pioneer began an attempt to subjugate the entire Domain under his rule. He and his minion, Shady, have the power to morph dissidents into harmless creatures. Pioneer is desperate to capture Milo so as to end her status as a secret hero and beacon of hope for the so-called Partisans he subjugates. Casey, however, just might throw a wrench in those plans, as Milo recruits her for a mission of utmost importance: to carry vital knowledge to Jake Lancaster, a fellow dissident seeking a way to save his wife and son from Pioneer. Casey will have to navigate treacherous terrain, political unrest and an alien world if she is to ever have a chance of seeing home again. Casey’s adventures are painted in fast-moving, easy-to-read prose divided into digestible chapters. Unfortunately, the story ends up too far on the side of simplicity. Dialogue often reads more as an adult’s idea of how teenagers talk—“Well…I don’t have all day to sit here and wait for you to decide whether or not I’m really a Yellow”—and the villains, Pioneer and Shady, lean toward being caricatured. The plot is smooth and the story’s nevertheless entertaining. Casey’s budding relationship, the small details of worldbuilding—calling an hour a “flux,” a glow a “month,” etc.)—and many of the minor “morph” characters stand out as particularly enjoyable.
Solid YA fantasy that, in spite of a few rough patches, should appeal to fans of the genre.
Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1496055514
Page Count: 440
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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