Nefarious bigwigs, collusion, and galactic jumps against a cosmic backdrop; readers should definitely want to come back for...
Interstellar travel is possible in the early 22nd century thanks to a much-desired element that one company controls and others will go to great lengths to take in this debut sci-fi adventure.
TV production assistant Mandisa “Mandi” Nkosi may have a story for her network, courtesy of an anonymous source. Someone’s contacted her with pertinent information about uranium (surrounding a terror plot). Mandi meets Anonymous, who tells of a possible conspiracy that includes the idea that the uranium didn’t originate on Earth but rather Eridani. That planet is where Applied Interstellar Corporation is establishing its headquarters. AIC first discovered hyperium on Saturn’s moon, Hyperion. The element is capable of opening wormholes for traversing star systems. CEO Jans Mikel’s moved AIC to Eridani to put distance between the company and Earth’s Euramerican Coalition government, which wants its shady hands on hyperium. In the last year, five of AIC’s ships have inexplicably vanished, but an emergency jump pod from the most recent vessel suggests a deliberate attack. Back on Earth, someone, it seems, tries to kill Mandi, likely wanting the data chip from her source. She’s saved by Grae Raymus of AIC Security and tags along on the return flight to Eridani, where trouble’s brewing. A sinister group may be targeting Helios, a moon richer in hyperium than Hyperion and which Jans has been keeping secret. Beyer opens his series with a punch, establishing his prospective universe while simultaneously delivering sci-fi action. A chase sequence on Earth and an explosive confrontation on Eridani are exhilarating, but dirty politicking of the future proves most engrossing, particularly Coalition Assemblyman/former Tech Standard Incorporated CEO Gregory Andrews. He’s clearly manipulating the Euramerican president like a puppet, while his suggestion of an ACI-TSI merger may be legitimate. Copious subplots are left unresolved, not the least of which is Mandi’s parents: a father who’s a mystery to her and mom Gisela, who abandoned her as a child but whom everyone, even Grae, apparently knows. There is, however, an unmistakable antagonist threatening Jans and AIC by the end, as well as a big reveal that demands a sequel.
Nefarious bigwigs, collusion, and galactic jumps against a cosmic backdrop; readers should definitely want to come back for more.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5301-6408-0
Page Count: 366
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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