Spectacularly and convincingly inventive, assured and wholly spellbinding: one of the most impressive debuts in years.
A sort of paranoid-conspiracy, hard sci-fi whodunit: the Scotland resident, Finnish author's jaw-dropping debut.
Notorious thief Jean le Flambeur serves an indeterminate sentence in the surreal Dilemma Prison governed by artificial intelligences, or Archons, at the behest of Earth's ruling "upload collective" called the Sobornost. The Archons' notion of rehabilitation is to compel the prisoners, incarcerated in infinitely repeating transparent cells, to play murderous mind games with infinite copies of themselves. Soon enough, though, along comes spacer Mieli in her alluring sentient spaceship to rescue le Flambeur—providing that he's willing to work for her. The thief has little choice, it's either accept or stay and be shot through the head over and over. And so they're off to Mars, where the multi-legged city of Oubliette wanders the landscape, terraforming as it goes. Here, time itself is currency; memory, and hence reality, is held collectively, privacy is a fetish preserved by unbreakable encryption and enforced by powerful "tzaddiks," but everybody's strings are being pulled—even the string-pullers'—by hidden higher authorities. Mieli's employer, known only as the pellegrini, wants le Flambeur to perform a particular if unmentioned service, while the thief has his own ulterior motives for cooperating: years ago he hid large chunks of his memories here, and now he needs to recover them to attain his own vengeful goals. Meanwhile, brilliant young detective Isidore Beautrelet, having just solved the murder of a prominent chocolatier, accepts another assignment—involving an arch villain named…le Flambeur. All this barely hints at the complex inventions and extrapolations, richly textured backdrop and well-developed characters seamlessly woven into a narrative stuffed with scientific, literary and cultural references.
Spectacularly and convincingly inventive, assured and wholly spellbinding: one of the most impressive debuts in years.Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2949-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
An adventurous fantasy romp only for the die-hard fan.
A mysterious woodsman joins forces with an earnest princess to stop a plot that could ruin both of their kingdoms in this fantasy romance.
Princess Sorcha keeps a close eye on her loved ones, constantly living in fear that her brother and adopted sisters will be taken away from her. When she uncovers a plan to murder her brother and steal his queen, Sorcha throws herself (quite literally) into ruining the enemy’s coldhearted scheme. In the fray, she is taken prisoner to be used as leverage. Her freedom comes at the hands of a man known only as the Woodsman. A Robin Hood–esque hero, he leads a secret rebellion to overthrow the corrupt family in power in his woodland country. With Sorcha’s ability to harness fire and the Woodsman’s talent for communing with nature, they realize their combined magical strength is the key to protecting those they love. Sorcha’s close circle of friends and family rely heavily on previously established relationships from prior books, and the setup is a direct relation to past events. Newcomers to Sparks’ (Eight Simple Rules for Dating a Dragon, 2018, etc.) Embraced by Magic series will undoubtedly be lost when attempting to understand character connections and references to previous skirmishes and battles. The relationship between the hero and heroine is background noise to the tangled web of political machinations by cartoonish villains, but the inventive setting and depth of worldbuilding prevent this from feeling too much like a paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter fantasy romance. But while Sparks’ crafting of distinct kingdoms and fantasy races is the strongest part of the series, this installment carries on the earlier tradition of middling, glacially slow romances.
An adventurous fantasy romp only for the die-hard fan.Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3004-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sci-fi, Monty Python-style—as West England villager Arthur Dent becomes the only survivor of Earth, rescued by Ford Prefect of Betelgeuse, a roving researcher for The Hitchhiker's Guide: when Earth is destroyed (demolished by the Vogons to make way for a hyperspatial express route), the two of them escape into a Vogon spaceship.
The hideous Vogons torture our heroes by reading poetry to them, but then they're miraculously picked up by the Starship Heart of Gold—which is powered by "the Infinite Improbability Drive," commanded by Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox, and staffed by an epically depressed robot named Marvin with a smart-aleck computer that sings "You'll Never Walk Alone." They're all headed for the legendary planet Magrathea, where roaming Arthur discovers Slartibartfast, the guy who originally made Earth ("Norway. . . that was one of mine. Won an award, you know. Lovely crinkly edges") and is now working on Earth Mark Two. And finally there's a confrontation with the Magrathea rulers—Benjy mouse and Frankie mouse—who want to mince Arthur's Earthling brain.
Lots of pure silliness, too many English references for U.S. readers, but—like moviegoers who sat through Life of Brian for the sake of a few good chuckles—fans of absurd deadpan parody will happily flip through this likable send-up in order to extract a couple of dozen fine giggles.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1980
ISBN: 1400052939
Page Count: 271
Publisher: Harmony/Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1980
BOOK TO SCREEN
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