An engrossing dystopian thriller with a vibrant, beastly cast.
A captive on a sinister planet vows revenge against the demons and aliens who have enslaved humans in this fourth installment of an SF series.
Paul Chapman is only 15 years old when vicious demonic creatures abduct his family from their Alaska cabin. He, his mother, and his twin sister wind up in hell, which is its own red desert planet, where humans are enslaved. They suffer vile treatment from the likes of imps, trolls, and hellhounds. Both the captors and the captives include alien creatures Paul has never seen before, like the kextuxixes, each sporting six eyes, a cylindrical head, and a third arm jutting from the chest. Though the defiant ones generally become demon food, Paul’s attacking an imp guard impresses an administrator, who enlists him as a gladiator. As years pass, Paul builds his strength and experience battling others in hell’s Prime City Coliseum. But more than anything, he craves revenge against the lord commander for what he and his minions have done to Paul’s family. Awaiting the right time to strike, Paul struggles to keep his fellow captives safe, even if he has to compromise his morals. Firesmith jampacks his engaging story with otherworldly beasts. They’re a motley assortment that, like the humans, features affable types among the mostly villainous group. Devils nevertheless stand out, having such names as Sêṣķ Ṭõṣ-ṭõṕ (footnotes and an addendum assist with pronunciation). The author deftly describes a bleak but colorful hell—a “clear, coral sky” and a unique pale pink (or burgundy red) fruit, munga, which is poisonous to humans. While the relatively simple plot sticks close to Paul’s vengeance quest, readers may want to read the series’previous installments, as the final act adds returning characters without any sort of introduction. This novel’s black-and-white illustrations by Bellio effectively showcase the fantastic creatures, even if most look as if they’re merely posing against plain backdrops.
An engrossing dystopian thriller with a vibrant, beastly cast.Pub Date: July 29, 2021
ISBN: 979-8527374209
Page Count: 477
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2021
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 fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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