An engaging, fablelike warning about climate change with a gentler approach than most eco–SF.
A family’s new home comes with an uncanny book apparently from the future, a memoir of sorts that tells of a coming environmental cataclysm and the peaceful world built by the few survivors.
Kellner, an artist, illustrates as well as annotates her debut SF novel, yet another cautionary tale in the cli-fi category. The Denzells purchase a vanished person’s furnished home on the condition that they retain its contents—resident cat, Plato; many books; and “unusual collections and strange artifacts left behind by the old man.” One book begins to reappear around the house with strange, insistent regularity, a bound volume supposedly from the future called The History of the World, bearing a publication date of 2200. Various family members in turn are caught up in reading the oddity, which claims to be the transcribed memories of surviving individuals starting in “The Time Before”—that is, before mid-21st-century global warming wiped out millions of species, eliminated crops, and turned Earth into myriad storm-wracked, overheated wastelands. In the Pacific, one little girl watches as everyone around her succumbs to blight and starvation. Her sole-survivor tale intertwines with the odyssey of Gabriel Thomason and Mia Lu, a presumably North American young couple who, as modern civilization collapses, take their chances at sea in a sailboat. Poetic imagery and song rather than disaster-movie violent mayhem move the engrossing narrative along with a sometimes-idyllic tone poignantly in contrast to the background of apocalyptic events. Hanging over the whole thing is the question mark (the customary shape in which Plato holds his tail) of whether the future really has to be this way. The intriguing story is not as shrill and angry as like-minded narratives in this alarm-bell genre (though it still makes its points) and is pitched to readers of a YA and older demographic. Kellner follows the loosely plotted book with considerable aftermatter documents bearing out her philosophies—everything from a wishful “Imagined Universal Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” to the United States Constitution (in total, even the part about guns), the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a little-remembered “Treaty for the Renunciation of War” from 1928 (“Oops,” readers will be tempted to say).
An engaging, fablelike warning about climate change with a gentler approach than most eco–SF. ("Imagined Universal Bill of Rights and Responsibilities", discussion questions, Appendix of Documents (United States Constitution, US Constitution Bill of Rights, Amendments to the US Constitution, Treaty for the Renunciation of War, United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Parliament of World's Religions "Commitment to the Sustainability and Care of the Earth"), Acknowledgments, interview with the author, other books from the same imprint, About the publisher) (science fiction)Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68463-123-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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