Sci-fi enthusiasts should prepare to be lured in by this series entry that’s sturdier and more assertive than the first.
Huntington’s (The Rings of Elpída, 2013) sci-fi series continues, as the inhabitants of a dying Earth train youngsters to acclimate to another planet—and its mind-invading alien species.
The ringed planet Elpída was supposed to be Earth’s salvation, but an expedition centuries ago to colonize the new world was a failure. It turned out that Elpída was already inhabited by the Multitude, who exist as voices inside human minds; most people can’t handle the Multitude’s intrusion and quickly go insane. A group on Earth trains teenagers to withstand Elpída’s atmosphere and gravity, and genetically engineers children, such as Lucia, who are “hardwired” to safely hear the Multitude. Humans often converse with individually named voices within the Multitude, but it considers itself a unified collective. Some of its members, however, go rogue with their own agenda, and it becomes clear that the potential colonists may not be as welcome on Elpída as they’d hoped. This series installment, like the debut, has a tendency to reside more in the metaphysical than the tangible, which is practically a necessity, as the aliens have no physical form as far as humans know. However, Huntington’s latest has a far more palpable and engaging plot. The Multitude, for example, appears less frequently, and the bulk of the story takes place on Earth as Lucia, Isak, and others undergo simulations and training. Evelyn Feelds, who was part of the original expedition and is now accepted as one of the Multitude, is the titular emissary, and she’s often seen in flesh and blood as one of the trainees. There’s still plenty that’s more conceptual; for example, the Multitude use the word “love” almost as an honorific (“Evelyn-Our-love.”). The story also establishes its villains quite well; Shimon is a notable baddie who may turn deadly once the group reaches Elpída, and Uyol of the Multitude is distinguishable by his boldface dialogue. Huntington’s dexterity with prose is also undeniable: she describes an especially violent “sim” as “All gritted teeth and burning blood, like leaves falling in the autumn months or drops of acid rain.”
Sci-fi enthusiasts should prepare to be lured in by this series entry that’s sturdier and more assertive than the first.Pub Date: March 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1507789414
Page Count: 662
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
For those who like their science fiction dense, monumental, and a bit overwrought.
Brown is back with Book 4 of his Red Rising series (Morning Star, 2016, etc.) and explores familiar themes of rebellion, revenge, and political instability.
This novel examines the ramifications and pitfalls of trying to build a new world out of the ashes of the old. The events here take place 10 years after the conclusion of Morning Star, which ended on a seemingly positive note. Darrow, aka Reaper, and his lover, Virginia au Augustus, aka Mustang, had vanquished the Golds, the elite ruling class, so hope was held out that a new order would arise. But in the new book it becomes clear that the concept of political order is tenuous at best, for Darrow’s first thoughts are on the forces of violence and chaos he has unleashed: “famines and genocide...piracy...terrorism, radiation sickness and disease...and the one hundred million lives lost in my [nuclear] war.” Readers familiar with the previous trilogy—and you'll have to be if you want to understand the current novel—will welcome a familiar cast of characters, including Mustang, Sevro (Darrow’s friend and fellow warrior), and Lysander (grandson of the Sovereign). Readers will also find familiarity in Brown’s idiosyncratic naming system (Cassius au Bellona, Octavia au Lune) and even in his vocabulary for cursing (“Goryhell,” “Bloodydamn,” “Slag that”). Brown introduces a number of new characters, including 18-year-old Lyria, a survivor of the initial Rising who gives a fresh perspective on the violence of the new war—and violence is indeed never far away from the world Brown creates. (He includes one particularly gruesome gladiatorial combat between Cassius and a host of enemies.) Brown imparts an epic quality to the events in part by his use of names. It’s impossible to ignore the weighty connotations of characters when they sport names like Bellerephon, Diomedes, Dido, and Apollonius.
For those who like their science fiction dense, monumental, and a bit overwrought.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-425-28591-6
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.
When a freak dust storm brings a manned mission to Mars to an unexpected close, an astronaut who is left behind fights to stay alive. This is the first novel from software engineer Weir.
One minute, astronaut Mark Watney was with his crew, struggling to make it out of a deadly Martian dust storm and back to the ship, currently in orbit over Mars. The next minute, he was gone, blown away, with an antenna sticking out of his side. The crew knew he'd lost pressure in his suit, and they'd seen his biosigns go flat. In grave danger themselves, they made an agonizing but logical decision: Figuring Mark was dead, they took off and headed back to Earth. As it happens, though, due to a bizarre chain of events, Mark is very much alive. He wakes up some time later to find himself stranded on Mars with a limited supply of food and no way to communicate with Earth or his fellow astronauts. Luckily, Mark is a botanist as well as an astronaut. So, armed with a few potatoes, he becomes Mars' first ever farmer. From there, Mark must overcome a series of increasingly tricky mental, physical and technical challenges just to stay alive, until finally, he realizes there is just a glimmer of hope that he may actually be rescued. Weir displays a virtuosic ability to write about highly technical situations without leaving readers far behind. The result is a story that is as plausible as it is compelling. The author imbues Mark with a sharp sense of humor, which cuts the tension, sometimes a little too much—some readers may be laughing when they should be on the edges of their seats. As for Mark’s verbal style, the modern dialogue at times undermines the futuristic setting. In fact, people in the book seem not only to talk the way we do now, they also use the same technology (cellphones, computers with keyboards). This makes the story feel like it's set in an alternate present, where the only difference is that humans are sending manned flights to Mars. Still, the author’s ingenuity in finding new scrapes to put Mark in, not to mention the ingenuity in finding ways out of said scrapes, is impressive.
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-3902-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
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