Personal and cultural complexities distinguish this fresh and fascinating look at a lawless future.
The world’s geopolitical balance rests on a genetically modified sea monster and his 17 1/2–year-old trainer. Can she resist the adrenaline rush of a pirate’s life to keep the world aright?
In Skrutskie’s debut, swelling seas and a one-world government rearrange national boundaries. Pirates, quite a few who are born on sovereign flotillas, are the new world threat. The governments hire businesses like the one owned by Cassandra Leung’s mom, which create genetically modified sea monsters called Reckoners to destroy the pirates and their vessels. Cassandra, like her dad, trains the aquatic escorts. On her first voyage, her first Reckoner, a terrapoid—a half-turtle, half–marine iguana hybrid “the size of a football field” and named Durga—is killed while trying to protect her assigned ship from the attack of the pirate leader Santa Elena. Cassandra hesitates too long in killing herself, per her dad’s instruction in order to keep the proprietary secrets, and Santa Elena captures her. Somehow, the pirate leader secures her own marine escort and coerces Cassandra to rear the creature. Even as the author offers pure speculative fiction, she also gives readers a terrifically believable heroine with Cassandra, who makes some all-too-human decisions to survive. Most fascinatingly, the author creates a multicultural world led by two women of color—Asian-American Cassandra and ethnically ambiguous Santa Elena—who are larger than life without resorting to stereotypes.
Personal and cultural complexities distinguish this fresh and fascinating look at a lawless future. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7387-4691-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Immersive and engaging, despite some flaws, and destined to capture imaginations.
Magic, mystery, and love intertwine and invite in this newest take on the “enchanted circus” trope.
Sisters raised by their abusive father, a governor of a colonial backwater in a world vaguely reminiscent of the late 18th century, Scarlett and Donatella each long for something more. Scarlett, olive-skinned, dark of hair and attitude, longs for Caraval, the fabled, magical circus helmed by the possibly evil Master Legend Santos, while blonde, sunny Tella finds comfort in drink and the embraces of various men. A slightly awkward start, with inconsistencies of attitude and setting, rapidly smooths out when they, along with handsome “golden-brown” sailor Julian, flee to Caraval on the eve of Scarlett’s arranged marriage. Tella disappears, and Scarlett must navigate a nighttime world of magic to find her. Caraval delights the senses: beautiful and scary, described in luscious prose, this is a show readers will wish they could enter. Dresses can be purchased for secrets or days of life; clocks can become doors; bridges move: this is an inventive and original circus, laced with an edge of horror. A double love story, one sensual romance and the other sisterly loyalty, anchors the plot, but the real star here is Caraval and its secrets.
Immersive and engaging, despite some flaws, and destined to capture imaginations. (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-09525-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
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