An enjoyable, raunchy, and gory sci-fi caper replete with duplicitous characters.
A rogue crew of galactic outcasts, criminals, assassins, and informers tries to buy its way into a better existence by transporting a spaceship filled with deadly genetic contraband to shadowy clients.
In his sci-fi novel, Mosquera (Status Quo, 2014, etc.) creates a memorable and confusing—in equal measures—gallery of characters and alien races, though well-proportioned and libidinous humanoids predominate in lead roles. The setting is a far-future cosmos recovering from a traumatic interstellar war. A ship carrying deadly bioengineered life forms and GMO weapons crashes on a bleak mining-colony world. The planet’s tentacled boss, the Baron, secretly sells the top-secret cargo to mysterious, distant buyers. Tasked with delivering the goods is a collection of desperadoes and exiles eager to get off-world. There’s the putative captain, Damien Blackthorne, a tainted battleground hero with an artificial heart and “cybernetic left arm”; Frankie Nox, aka Scrap Doll, the treasure-hunting mind of a ruthless space pirate downloaded into the superbody of a sex robot; gourmet chef Braal Draedax, who schemes his way onboard with a hidden agenda; Silas Deacon, an ascetic Xartian with formidable tech skills as well as psi-based fight moves (imagine a lean, mean Spock, great in bed); and so on, nearly everyone coming accessorized with treacherously divided loyalties and secret identities. This raucous space romp is akin to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in terms of adventure, romance (well, sex), and really wild things, but with a solid R rating for violence, profanity, and erotica. The formidable mission by two-faced players (when their species even have faces) evolves into an episodic set of encounters, with a deadly game show, a slimy stowaway, and an assignment to masquerade as a “brawl ball” sports team, among other perils. It’s an agreeable thrill ride for fans who wish to deep dive into fast-moving, outlandish sci-fi pulp that doesn’t take itself too seriously but doesn’t hold back on the bloodletting and hard stuff either.
An enjoyable, raunchy, and gory sci-fi caper replete with duplicitous characters.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9916601-3-1
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Oddity Media
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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