This middle-grade adventure sees a girl take up a fantastic quest alongside an alien companion.
One day, sixth grader Katie Noriega stares outside during class. She notices an oak tree and hears a voice ask, “Will you listen to me?” She does and learns that the tree doesn’t want its branches cut. When she passes this on to Mr. Pinksi, her teacher, the class ridicules her. Her best friend, Amy Scott, tells her that pretending to talk to nature is embarrassing. Even more discouraging, Katie’s parents have been fighting and may get divorced. After school, her cat, Sasha, says, “Earth.” Katie is unsure of the message—until the ground shakes and she falls into the family’s basement. There, she meets Za, a young gnomelike alien from the planet Stella. He has purple skin and a bright orb that reveals they’re actually in a cave. They follow a stream through this place that’s “stuck between” and encounter a woman named Dania, who leads them to her forest dwelling. Za’s guardian arrives and gives them gifts, a charm bracelet and a journey song, to help the kids in their search for the Winged Ones and a way back to their respective worlds. Meanwhile, a battle with the all-consuming Poison One lurks ahead. Davidson shares her passion for fantasy and the environment in this vibrant novel. Katie’s character is grounded by the threat of her parents’ divorce. She also bonds, despite the bickering, with Za, whose parents live on different planets. Younger readers will recognize familiar fantasy components, including Kira, a lion; elemental dragons; and Seidon, the lord of the waterways. Love for nature shines as the author’s overarching message; for example, Seidon says, “Although I continue to sense the other waters...Many are now polluted, and I can’t reach them.” An excellent scene showing the connection between trees and fungi gives adventure fans a topic for further study. Also noteworthy is that Katie and Za could not look more different, but they win by embracing their similarities. A winged horse named Wind stays with Katie in the end, hinting at further escapades.
A bright, vividly told tale that will bring readers closer to the natural world.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-64388-718-0
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Luminare Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
84
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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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Categories: FANTASY | EPIC FANTASY | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL FANTASY
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