With its well-built world, vivid characters and suspenseful plot, this book, the first in a planned trilogy, is poised to...
A suspenseful post-apocalyptic adventure about a world cleaved in two.
Hundreds of years ago, the world was destroyed in a blast of fire. Now, just as history has been divided into Before and After, humans have been divided into Alphas and Omegas. Every whole, healthy Alpha child is born with a mutated Omega twin who’s missing an arm or an eye—or has one too many. And when one twin dies, the other dies, instantly, inexplicably, inevitably. Most twins are separated as infants, but Cassandra and her twin, Zach, are both born physically whole, so Cass is able to hide her mutation—the fact that she can see things that haven’t happened yet and places she’s never been. The link between Cass and Zach has the potential to change their world forever, as Zach climbs the ranks of the ruling Alpha Council, and Cass starts to dream about an island where, rumor has it, an Omega resistance is brewing. Debut novelist Haig builds a richly textured world and creates characters who immediately feel real. The suspense of the plot, driven by the fear and anger underlying this unbreakable bond between twins, never flags. Haig’s experience as a poet shows in her writing, which is clear, forceful and laced with bright threads of beauty.
With its well-built world, vivid characters and suspenseful plot, this book, the first in a planned trilogy, is poised to become the next must-read hit.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-6718-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Intricate, disconcerting far-future saga from the author The Player of Games (1989), etc., in which the Encroachment, a cloud of space dust, threatens to extinguish all life on Earth. The characters interact mostly within a colossal building called the Serehfa, which incorporates an advanced computer network of which the crypt, a virtual reality realm where stored personalities roam and interact, is menaced by slowly advancing chaos. King Adijine, who possesses the means to spy on anyone anywhere, has gone to war with the Chapel Engineers over control of a mysterious something that may be of assistance against the Encroachment. His Chief Scientist, Hortis Gadfium, has formed a conspiracy to search for a better way to tackle the problem; she receives a strange but encouraging message from the top of the fast-tower, an area long isolated from the rest of the building that was once the anchor for a space elevator system. The Asura, a young woman gradually recalling her memories and purpose, embodies another message, this from one independent part of the computer system to another. When Count Alandre Sessine is murdered, his relict in the crypt prompts another version of himself, prepared long ago, to find out why. And young Bascule, a Teller who converses with the occupants of the crypt, adds his nearly unintelligible voice to the narrative: "He lukes @ me & wails Feerth, Mr. Bathcule! Feerth! & then juss keels ovir on2 thi flor ov thi box, his Is stil opin." Quite a brew, and they haven't even begun to save the world yet. An extraordinary, often brilliantly inventive odyssey, so dense and complicated that Banks must pause halfway through and again at the end simply to provide catch-up explanations. Dazzling stuff: a shame it doesn't add up.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37459-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
A companion volume, rather than a sequel, to Divine Endurance (1987), set in a far-future Southeast Asian peninsula ruled by the Koperaci—troops recruited by the decadent and highly secretive Rulers who live offshore. Ages ago, a Ruler toy factory created several immortal organic robots, among them Divine Endurance the cat, and a girl doll, Cho. The cat hates humans and does as she pleases; Cho is programmed to give her human companions what they want. This time, flowerdust—a drug that affects fertile women in inimical and unpredictable ways—is being distributed on the island Ranganar; and Cho's human, Derveet, a revolutionary forever suspicious of the Rulers and their occupying army, decides to investigate. With her companions—the bookkeeper Cycler Jhonni, the Prince Atoon, and the treacherous, abused scholar Endang—Derveet focuses on a former companion and wannabe warlord, Jeeby Ilamzah. But Jeeby turns out to be a woman, now hopelessly addicted to flowerdust. She leads Derveet and the others into the jungle, where a hidden camp confines people afflicted with all manner of infectious diseases. The Rulers' intent was to release the camp's inmates and thus wipe out the inhabitants of the peninsula. Unfortunately for the Rulers, the magic of the all-woman dapur councils prevents the spread of infectious diseases. So, the second phase of the Rulers' plan will go into effect: to destabilize the peninsula by causing a flood of refugees. Discomfiting, like its predecessor, and imaginatively bold— but badly in need of some new plot ideas.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-85894-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
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