Third episode of Turtledove's vast, continuing saga, this following hard on the heels of Worldwar: Tilting the Balance (p. 34), that pits the once-warring nations of WW II against the infinitely more dangerous invading alien Race. Atvar, the alien leader, barely survives a leadership challenge, while his human foes—fuel shortages have reduced them to using horses and bicycles—rush to prepare poison gases and nuclear bombs to use against the aggressors. Among humans, the old social, racial, religious, and gender divisions are crumbling, while the once utterly obedient, now ginger-addicted Race soldiers mutiny against their imperial masters. Again sporadically gripping, with panoramic views and a cast of thousands.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-345-40221-9
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Watts (ßehemoth: Seppuku, 2005, etc.) carries several complications too many, but presents nonetheless a searching,...
Alien-contact tale in which humans are at least as weird as the aliens.
Eighty years from now, denizens of Earth become aware of an alien presence when the sky fills with bursts of light from dying Fireflies, tiny machines that signal to a supergiant planet far beyond the edge of the solar system. With orders to investigate, the vessel Theseus carries an artificial intelligence as its captain, along with expedition leader Jukka Sarasti, a brooding, sociopathic and downright scary vampire; Isaac Szpindel, a biologist so mechanized he can barely feel his own skin; the Gang of Four, a schizophrenic linguist; curiously passive warrior Major Amanda Bates; and observer-narrator Siri Keeton, a synthesist with half a brain (the remainder destroyed by a virus) enhanced by add-ons and advanced algorithms. They meet a huge alien vessel that calls itself Rorschach and talks eagerly but says nothing of consequence. Indeed, the Gang of Four suspects that the alien voice isn’t truly sentient at all. As Keeton begins to hallucinate, Sarasti orders a team to break into the alien vessel despite its lethal radiation levels. Still unable to decide whether the aliens are hostile, Sarasti devises a plan to capture one of the creatures that apparently thrive within Rorschach’s peculiar environment. They succeed in grabbing two specimens. These scramblers, dubbed Stretch and Clench, resemble huge, bony, multi-limbed starfish. They have no brains but show evidence of massive information-processing capability, which brings Theseus’ crew to the crucial question: Can intelligence exist without self-awareness?
Watts (ßehemoth: Seppuku, 2005, etc.) carries several complications too many, but presents nonetheless a searching, disconcerting, challenging, sometimes piercing inquisition.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-31218-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
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