A riveting opening series installment that introduces spirited characters and an unforgettable dystopian world.
In Kennedy’s sci-fi novel and series launch, an ex-con returns to his home planet, where political unrest threatens his family.
After serving five years for a crime he didn’t commit, Arliss Dubai returns to the planet Teton. He hopes to ease his way back into family life with his wife, Meera, and their 12-year-old son, Kip. Arliss is a “Blend” with bioengineered enhancements that grant him qualities like superhuman vision and strength. Humans originally engineered Blends to help perfect their megacities in Teton’s unforgiving climate. In the years since, those like Arliss, instantly recognizable by their blue skin, have been treated like lesser people. That’s also the case for blue-freckled “Patchworks” (or “Patchies”), the hybrid children (like Kip) of Blend/non-Blend parents. The discrimination has only gotten worse during Arliss’ incarceration, with more security checkpoints and nodes for Blends than ever before. The “Pure Breathers,” a group that began as “fringe extremists,” has garnered power via members in government; the faction’s goal seems to be segregation followed by forced migration of the Blends. Some of the blue-skinned locals want Arliss to serve as the muscle in their resistance, but he’s determined to stay out of trouble; he’s already got his hands full as he struggles to reconnect with Kip. The tween has been running around with the “Pikers,” an anti-government group of youngsters that may occasionally dabble in criminal acts. Arliss is up for the challenge of protecting his family while struggling to maintain peace with a corrupt government and people who hate his kind.
Kennedy has crafted a fascinating world and equally absorbing characters. Meera, for example, is the daughter of Galen Keet, a “Wind Reader” (one of a religious group that acts as “vessels for the planet’s voice”), who practically disowned her years ago upon learning that her baby-to-be was a Patchie. Everyone in the cast is boldly defined, and there’s no obvious villain—just individuals who might do dubious things or follow a misguided path. They all live in the megalopolis of Vandress among its ten towering Megas, including the “architecturally convoluted” Sinquin (where the Dubais’ apartment is located). The bulk of the story is conveyed through dialogue as the narrative perspective shifts among those of Arliss and members of his family, the Pikers’ leader, and a member of the governing Unified Council. The topics of conversation include politics, Arliss and Meera’s concerns about their son’s potential issues, and the Pikers’ plans. There’s little in the way of action, though one scene in particular is both exhilarating and dramatically arresting. As the story progresses, mysteries pop up, from details about Arliss’ imprisonment to the strange duo who helps Arliss when “Enforcement Q” officers gang up on him. The story truly picks up steam in the latter half, which offers such juicy bits as a startling betrayal, a life-changing decision, and striking deaths. Numerous questions that arise remain unanswered at the end, including a terrific subplot that’s left glaringly open, which gives readers plenty of incentive to hang on for the sequels.
A riveting opening series installment that introduces spirited characters and an unforgettable dystopian world.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2025
ISBN: 9798270669768
Page Count: 478
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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