An intricate, action-packed interplanetary ride that will excite SF fans.
An SF thriller focuses on a Venusian actor who finds himself in deep trouble.
Something is rotten in colonial Venus. People are separated into castelike groups—hedonites and reformers—and Hix falls in the first category. Once a child of the Venusian slums, Hix grew up to become a famous actor with the nickname Falcon Fire. But his status is less celebrated when readers first encounter him, as he is being held prisoner on an “interplanetary transport ferry” called the Zephyr Spear, heading to Earth’s orbit for a “surface core extraction” mission. Hix is accused of multiple crimes—such as commandeering an airship—but the manslaughter charge for the death of his love, Shawna, is iffy. While Neeva, Shawna’s sister, has been primed to become “Keeper of the First Colony heritage,” she is first tasked with overseeing the case regarding Hix. Hix quickly builds a crew of prisoners aboard the Zephyr Spear,and they form a plan to travel to Venus only to end up heading directly toward Earth. Neeva, meanwhile, in the midst of her investigation, contends with hedonite bombs, a potential reformer conspiracy, and her desire to track down Mel, Hix’s beloved sister. Otto’s story is part action thriller and part outer-space police procedural, but it’s peppered with heart throughout. This is shown in the evident love between Hix and his sister—most notably, in one poignant moment between the two—and in Neeva’s affection for Shawna and her profound loss. The prose is descriptive, which aids in the author’s extensive worldbuilding. Life on Venus for these characters is fully developed through Otto’s prose, to the point where certain terminology may initially be a bit confusing to readers: “A symbiont by the name of NM-198 has gone missing in the south pole psychanthropic network.” Similarly, the story sometimes offers a multitude of characters to keep track of, which becomes a tad daunting. Still, the author’s tale is thorough and engaging. Hix manages to be a hero worth rooting for without being too cheesy or reduced to an action trope. And Neeva, particularly when Otto details her backstory with her parents, is a strong and determined character while still remaining vulnerable and flawed.
An intricate, action-packed interplanetary ride that will excite SF fans.Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Sagis Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.
When a bunch of corporate assholes mark their planet for destruction, a garage band of colonists must defend their home world with the power of rock.
Slightly sidestepping his frenetic litRPG—literary role-playing game—doorstoppers, here Dinniman takes on capitalism, propaganda, xenophobia, and violence as entertainment. Thankfully for readers, it’s all wrapped in the usual profane, adolescent humor, and SF readers will have a ball. A couple of hundred years after they left Earth, the inhabitants of the interstellar colony of New Sonora weren’t expecting much in the way of new threats, especially after a mysterious illness killed almost everyone between the ages of 30 and 60. That disaster left only the young and the old on the populated planet, where farming is enabled by highly accelerated AI and people are generally cool with each other. But when drummer Oliver Lewis stumbles across a foul-mouthed killer mech piloted by a child, he realizes that something’s definitely fishy. Earth, it seems, has classified the New Sonorans as non-human and scheduled their destruction as a paid, five-day combat game. Apex Industries, led by lead mercenary Eli Opel, has reverse-engineered Ender’s Game and is turning loose its players with real bullets and bombs on the population of New Sonora. The resistance is a weird bunch, led by proto-slacker Oliver; his little sister, Lulu; and his ex-girlfriend, documentary filmmaker and burgeoning revolutionary Rosita Zapatero, as well as the other members of Oliver’s band, the Rhythm Mafia. Thankfully, they also have Roger, the last functioning AI on the planet, though Oliver’s grandfather permanently programmed it to nannybot mode as a dying joke. Call the book overlong—the battle scenes often feel like watching someone play a videogame—but the humor and the execution are cutting without being mean and there’s almost always a point.
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9780593820308
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.
Having survived a disastrous deep space mission in 2038, three asteroid miners plan a return to their abandoned ship to save two colleagues who were left behind.
Though bankrolled through a crooked money laundering scheme, their original project promised to put in place a program to reduce the CO2 levels on Earth, ease global warming, and pave the way for the future. The rescue mission, itself unsanctioned, doesn't have a much better chance of succeeding. All manner of technical mishaps, unplanned-for dangers, and cutthroat competition for the precious resources from the asteroid await the three miners. One of them has cancer. The international community opposes the mission, with China, Russia, and the United States sending questionable "observers" to the new space station that gets built north of the moon for the expedition. And then there is Space Titan Jack Macy, a rogue billionaire threatening to grab the riches. (As one character says, "It's a free universe.") Suarez's basic story is a good one, with tense moments, cool robot surrogates, and virtual reality visions. But too much of the novel consists of long, sometimes bloated stretches of technical description, discussions of newfangled financing for "off-world" projects, and at least one unneeded backstory. So little actually happens that fixing the station's faulty plumbing becomes a significant plot point. For those who want to know everything about "silicon photovoltaics" and "orthostatic intolerance," Suarez's latest SF saga will be right up their alley. But for those itching for less talk and more action, the book's many pages of setup become wearing.
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18363-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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