A leisurely paced but absorbing introduction to a futuristic series that’s bound to shine.
In Murray’s SF novel, a pilot and registered smuggler has no choice but to join a mission with the lofty goal of saving the galaxy.
Polla Ottrava, following an accident on her home planet of Feldelroy, awakens on a strange ship. She’s apparently under the care of the Kamen-lords, who hail from notoriously wealthy families and wield such “kamn” (essentially magic) as telekinesis. What little Polla knows of Kamen-lords, she doesn’t like; she lost a friend to their “stinking war” when one Kamen-lord, Ledas Starfire, blew up a star system. Polla learns she’s been in a coma for just over a year; now, the Kamen-lords who have been with her all that time need her piloting skills. They aim to take out Illcord Natoth, the widower of the allegedly dead Starfire, who’s been making planets go dark. Polla can help get to him by flying an undetectable bloodship, or living ship. She can’t exactly say no to this mission, since she’s effectively a prisoner, but her Kamen-lord captors are at least willing to pay her. Polla needs a navvy (implanted navigational computers that Polla calls machines but others call symbiotes) to pilot any ship. Her personal navvy, Second, has been unresponsive since she woke up—a fact she keeps to herself as long as she possibly can. In the meantime, she meets and befriends Rathe Sai, her potential co-pilot, while catching up on all she missed during her coma (although the current interstellar war isn’t so different from what was happening a year ago). If she gets a chance, maybe she can attempt an escape.
Murray’s tale, which kicks off a series, limns an enthralling distant future. The volatile dynamic between Polla and Kamen-lords Davad and Mureen (her captors) beguiles with the characters’ murky histories and the secrets they hold. The story blends real-world places, like Earth and the Alpha Centauri system, with fictional planets that appear in or are referenced throughout the novel. The narrative structure will surely keep readers on their toes as it bounces from Polla’s first-person perspective to her messages to a relatively unknown character to flashbacks that zero in on “Lee” (Starfire) and others. The transitions are easy to follow, as is the overall story, even with those messages citing events that Polla hasn’t yet experienced. Polla is gleefully morally gray; she uses Second to pick locks (which navvies aren’t designed for) but garners sympathy for awakening to utter confusion and concern. The rest of the curious cast follows suit, including hard-to-trust Davad and Mureen, possible ally Rathe, and unexpectedly sensitive nurse-android Teapot (“My precious patient requires a mask…Her health is delicate!”). There’s unfortunately little plot progression in this opening installment, with most focus going to stories from the past (like Starfire’s devastating “supernova”) or Polla’s struggle to connect with Second. Still, Murray’s animated prose is an unmitigated delight: “Lee almost missed the warship that popped out of hyperspace. In another instant, manned fighters streamed from its bays by the hundreds. Sparks spread like fireflies to encircle [her ship].”
A leisurely paced but absorbing introduction to a futuristic series that’s bound to shine.Pub Date: July 15, 2024
ISBN: 9798990429802
Page Count: 342
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.
When a freak dust storm brings a manned mission to Mars to an unexpected close, an astronaut who is left behind fights to stay alive. This is the first novel from software engineer Weir.
One minute, astronaut Mark Watney was with his crew, struggling to make it out of a deadly Martian dust storm and back to the ship, currently in orbit over Mars. The next minute, he was gone, blown away, with an antenna sticking out of his side. The crew knew he'd lost pressure in his suit, and they'd seen his biosigns go flat. In grave danger themselves, they made an agonizing but logical decision: Figuring Mark was dead, they took off and headed back to Earth. As it happens, though, due to a bizarre chain of events, Mark is very much alive. He wakes up some time later to find himself stranded on Mars with a limited supply of food and no way to communicate with Earth or his fellow astronauts. Luckily, Mark is a botanist as well as an astronaut. So, armed with a few potatoes, he becomes Mars' first ever farmer. From there, Mark must overcome a series of increasingly tricky mental, physical and technical challenges just to stay alive, until finally, he realizes there is just a glimmer of hope that he may actually be rescued. Weir displays a virtuosic ability to write about highly technical situations without leaving readers far behind. The result is a story that is as plausible as it is compelling. The author imbues Mark with a sharp sense of humor, which cuts the tension, sometimes a little too much—some readers may be laughing when they should be on the edges of their seats. As for Mark’s verbal style, the modern dialogue at times undermines the futuristic setting. In fact, people in the book seem not only to talk the way we do now, they also use the same technology (cellphones, computers with keyboards). This makes the story feel like it's set in an alternate present, where the only difference is that humans are sending manned flights to Mars. Still, the author’s ingenuity in finding new scrapes to put Mark in, not to mention the ingenuity in finding ways out of said scrapes, is impressive.
Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-3902-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
