A colorful cast invigorates this epic, indelible futuristic tale.
Military forces and female warriors fight to protect a distant galaxy from space pirates and a merciless hidden enemy in this SF sequel.
Following the catastrophic Rift War, entire planets in the Twin Galaxies make efforts to rebuild. But pirates continue to run amok; their latest target is the cruise ship the Empress Star. But its passengers include members of a military faction, the Founder’s Elite, who don’t readily surrender. Fellow Elites scour space for the missing ship, and Elite engineer Neven Kenk has an added incentive, as his military scientist girlfriend is onboard the Empress Star. Elsewhere, Serah’Elax and other Ashna Maidens, female warriors who police the Twin Galaxies’ Outer Rim, face an antagonist they can’t identify. Powerful, mysterious vessels bombard the warriors’ ships, leaving destruction in their wake. Unbeknown to the Maidens, an enemy from the Rift War has a nefarious plan under way to infiltrate their group. Once Serah’Elax suspects something is amiss, she’s a target for assassination. She strives to shine a light on the mastermind before it’s too late as the Maidens and the Founder’s Elite, who share no alliance, battle pirates and an even deadlier common foe. Arriaga skillfully handles numerous characters and subplots in his space opera’s latest installment. For example, perpetually changing narrative perspectives are easier to follow with relatively few settings (for example, several Elites on the Empress Star). Certain storylines, like a man’s astonishing reunion with the wife he believed had died, don’t initially seem cohesive but link with others by the end. Still, even clocking in at nearly 600 pages, the novel can’t fully spotlight every character; some players, like Serah’Elax, could have carried the story on their own. The author vividly details his SF world, from individual attributes and chic tech to periodic sprinklings of alien races’ distinctive languages, such as vusg, a decidedly popular Huzien and Tuzen expletive.
A colorful cast invigorates this epic, indelible futuristic tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-70-308460-1
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
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