by Harambee K. Grey-Sun ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2012
Avoiding the comic-book trap (though there is some resemblance to The Matrix), this cross-dimensional thriller should give...
A virus grants victims superhuman powers and perceptions (if it doesn’t kill them first), and Robert and Darryl are two such carriers, fighting crime and unstable fellow infectees.
In a near future when drug addiction and gangs push society closer to anarchy, the White-Fire Virus afflicts a small but important percentage. The STD shortens lifespans, distorts the mind and floods the body with bizarre, possibly sentient, photosensitive parasites. Those able to control the microbes via meds, their own will and light-tight full-body suits can develop amazing abilities, including shape-shifting and light bending (i.e. invisibility, heat rays and such). Other victims literally melt, and some go mad and turn into psychotic criminals. Robert and Darryl are two young virus-carriers who have joined an elite covert-ops squad, ostensibly searching for missing kids but more often hunting viral villains. Each man has his own baggage: The hard-nosed Robert mourns the loss of his family; maverick Darryl, sexually appealing to male and female alike, brainwashes pickups into permanent celibacy out of some spiritual crusade. They separately get involved with mystery women, also touched and warped by White Fire, who fancy themselves “arkangel” mystics ushering in a post-apocalyptic new world. But who are the do-gooders and who are the insane terrorists or pawns? Author Grey-Sun’s mutant-superhero, AIDS-metaphor concept may seem a bit overreaching at times, especially when it morphs into a philosophical quest, however, hallucinatory passages and alternative-reality themes echo the prose of Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick without seeming derivative—quite a feat there alone—even if a mismatched buddy-supercop template underpins much of the cosmic spectacle. Despite oft-referenced sexual elements, erotic content is hardly present; it’s the metaphysics—poetic, somewhat punny wordplay about the nature of God, art and Creation—that get full-frontal exposure. The author even injects an entertaining side detail: Sufferers from the virus are drawn to quoting arcane ideas and badly written allegorical novels. This title may even find a readership in religious fantasy literature, albeit of a pretty far-out variety.
Avoiding the comic-book trap (though there is some resemblance to The Matrix), this cross-dimensional thriller should give broad-minded readers a heady brew of thought and superpowered action.Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475005417
Page Count: 312
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by Rebecca Yarros ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2023
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
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