bookshelf

IN ENEMY HANDS

Name: IN ENEMY HANDS
Author: David M. Weber
ISBN: 0-671-87793-3

by David M. Weber ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1997

bookshelf

Weber's hardcover debut extends an established paperback series (Honor Among Enemies, etc.) about Honor Harrington, a genetically engineered warrior whiz, now a commodore in the service of the good-guy Alliance against the evil-empire People's Republic, or Peeps—the circumstances of which we learn all about during a prolonged and tiresome introduction. Honor's constant companion is Nimitz, an intelligent and empathic treecat. Finally, Honor takes up her duties aboard a convoy escort. But when her detachment is surprised by Peep cruisers, Honor draws the enemy away from the convoy until, her own ship heavily damaged, she's forced to surrender. Vicious Peep bigwig Cordelia Ransom orders Honor imprisoned pending execution on planet Hades, while the battered remnants of Honor's crew are held aboard ship. Honor resists every attempt to break her spirit; her crew stage a breakout, rescue her, and blow up the ship—along with the unspeakable Cordelia—so that the Peeps will think they're dead. Ludicrously overburdened with titles and honorifics, and with comic-book villains, cardboard backdrop, and invisible plot: an unutterably tedious experience.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-671-87793-3

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Baen

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997

Categories:

SCIENCE FICTION

bookshelf

Awards & Accolades

Likes

613

Our Verdict

GET IT

New York Times Bestseller

DEVOLUTION

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

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

bookshelf

Awards & Accolades

Likes

613

Our Verdict

GET IT

New York Times Bestseller

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.