Gaertner’s debut moves along briskly, and though the novel falls well short of its grandly stated goal of answering the...
A crown prince of a distant planet assumes the guise of a 19th-century American slave in this oddly absorbing New Age novel.
In the cosmology posited by this first novel in a planned series illuminating the “Gaertnerian” worldview, Earth is part of a family of 383 planetary cultures in a “life-stream” fathered by Aaron the Wayshower, one of an infinite number of cosmic progenitors and protectors. On Aumnia–Earth’s sister planet in this life-stream–survival is threatened by the economic imbalance caused by the institution of white slavery in its dominant kingdom, Verde. Young Prince Vada, heir to the Verdean throne, is content to maintain the status quo, though his mentor, Professor Behrim Montu, has tried to convince the prince that the increasing militarism slavery has inspired spells doom for all of Aumnia. Finally, Montu arranges for Vada to “translate” to the mid-19th-century United States (via a secret transport chamber installed in Maryland) where the prince will experience slavery firsthand. Once on American soil, Vada is kidnapped by slave-traders and sold to Rex Anderson, heir to Clearfield Plantation. With the help of Professor Montu, Vada quickly integrates himself into the plantation’s slave culture, dispensing wisdom and performing acts of strength that earn him the respect of fellow slaves (though readers familiar with the history of American slavery will question the representation of slaves as happy-go-lucky, dancing simpletons, and will cringe at the attempt to recreate “black” dialect). But when Vada falls in love with Rex’s fiancée, Flora Bell, Montu’s plan–and Vada’s life–are threatened.
Gaertner’s debut moves along briskly, and though the novel falls well short of its grandly stated goal of answering the “big questions,” the motivation behind the project–to harmonize disparate groups by creating empathy and understanding–is impossible not to like.Pub Date: July 28, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-4134-8816-6
Page Count: 310
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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