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THE COBALT DOMAIN

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

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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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

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THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM

From the Remembrance of Earth's Past series , Vol. 1

Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.

Strange and fascinating alien-contact yarn, the first of a trilogy from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.

In 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, young physicist Ye Wenjie helplessly watches as fanatical Red Guards beat her father to death. She ends up in a remote re-education (i.e. forced labor) camp not far from an imposing, top secret military installation called Red Coast Base. Eventually, Ye comes to work at Red Coast as a lowly technician, but what really goes on there? Weapons research, certainly, but is it also listening for signals from space—maybe even signaling in return? Another thread picks up the story 40 years later, when nanomaterials researcher Wang Miao and thuggish but perceptive policeman Shi Qiang, summoned by a top-secret international (!) military commission, learn of a war so secret and mysterious that the military officers will give no details. Of more immediate concern is a series of inexplicable deaths, all prominent scientists, including the suicide of Yang Dong, the physicist daughter of Ye Wenjie; the scientists were involved with the shadowy group Frontiers of Science. Wang agrees to join the group and investigate and soon must confront events that seem to defy the laws of physics. He also logs on to a highly sophisticated virtual reality game called “Three Body,” set on a planet whose unpredictable and often deadly environment alternates between Stable times and Chaotic times. And he meets Ye Wenjie, rehabilitated and now a retired professor. Ye begins to tell Wang what happened more than 40 years ago. Jaw-dropping revelations build to a stunning conclusion. In concept and development, it resembles top-notch Arthur C. Clarke or Larry Niven but with a perspective—plots, mysteries, conspiracies, murders, revelations and all—embedded in a culture and politic dramatically unfamiliar to most readers in the West, conveniently illuminated with footnotes courtesy of translator Liu.

Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.

Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-7653-7706-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014

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