Audiences will be guessing not just who the murderer is, but what kind of craziness lurks around the corner.
The latest from Alberts (Photographic Memory, 2014, etc.) sees a motley collection of detectives, special operatives, and imaginary beings investigate a murder that has displeased Death itself.
Jules Sallie, of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, can’t keep a job. He’s just been fired from his tech-support position with MyTronix, and his friend Billy at the temp agency Kronos & Associates doesn’t have a new job for him. Jules gets drunk and wanders into a homeless camp where he samples a strange concoction. After passing out, he wakes up feeling enlightened—he’s also made friends with a garbage troll named Billabong Willie. Meanwhile, in Madison, Death seeks the help of Ed and Phil, of the Unseen Detective Agency; they investigate crimes in the world of gods, demigods, and other fantastic beings invisible to normal society. Dedun, the Nubian God of Incense, has been killed, but he wasn’t on Death’s list—someone else is responsible. The link between Jules’ newly found wisdom and Dedun’s murder may lie with the Map Watchers. Hal and Calvin watch over Madison, keeping track of individuals both mortal and immortal using a sophisticated live map. When an anomaly pops up in Sun Prairie, they wonder if the Replacement has arrived. But who is the Replacement, and what is the connection to Dedun? Author Alberts has once again delivered a vigorous whirlwind of ideas, this time in the shape of a fantasy whodunit. His knowledge of classical and popular deities is put to work, and the result is so colorful that readers may wish for him to trim the cast (Santa Claus, Destiny personified, and a leprechaun among them). Alberts’ prose is swimming in puns, most of which are entertaining—though some feel forced (one chapter title is “The Garage Band is Garage Banned”). Longtime sci-fi fans will enjoy the references sprinkled throughout, including those to Star Wars and Stranger in a Strange Land’s “grokking.” Ultimately, readers should strap in for a bizarre, though warm adventure.
Audiences will be guessing not just who the murderer is, but what kind of craziness lurks around the corner.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1508668398
Page Count: 330
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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