Elaborate scripting and stage-setting for the series to come: your move.
First volume of a new neo-pulp science fiction series, from the author of The Cybernetic Walrus (1995), etc. In the far future, planets are connected via wormholes, until suddenly—the Great Silence—half the network stops functioning, leaving hundreds of planets isolated, their economies collapsing, social systems regressing toward barbarism. God, however, has told Dr. Karl Woodward, with his huge ship, the Mountain, to visit benighted planets, bringing trade, technology, and the Good Word. In the latest encounter, the Mountain approaches a planet that seems peacefully agricultural, with no advanced technology. Instead, Woodward's folk are confronted by a gang of ruthless pirates who are prepared to take hostages, torture, and kill in order to force their way off the planet. Battle is joined; Woodward emerges victorious. The pirate captain, Morgudan Sapenza, bargains with Woodward: in exchange for not destroying the wormhole and isolating the pirates forever, Sapenza reveals the location of the fabled, lost Three Kings system—which is just teeming with immensely valuable alien artifacts. God, too, wants Karl to go there. After a tough trip through a wormhole, they crash-land on planet Balshazzar, a paradise-like planet that's inhabited by an invisible alien with the power to raise the dead. The alien wagers that Karl's people will devolve into lotus-eaters before another ship arrives; Karl maintains that faith will sustain his flock.
Elaborate scripting and stage-setting for the series to come: your move.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-671-57880-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Baen
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Smart, funny, humane, and superbly well-written.
A post-apocalyptic—and pre-apocalyptic—debut.
It’s 2011, if not quite the 2011 you remember. Candace Chen is a millennial living in Manhattan. She doesn’t love her job as a production assistant—she helps publishers make specialty Bibles—but it’s a steady paycheck. Her boyfriend wants to leave the city and his own mindless job. She doesn’t go with him, so she’s in the city when Shen Fever strikes. Victims don’t die immediately. Instead, they slide into a mechanical existence in which they repeat the same mundane actions over and over. These zombies aren’t out hunting humans; instead, they perform a single habit from life until their bodies fall apart. Retail workers fold and refold T-shirts. Women set the table for dinner over and over again. A handful of people seem to be immune, though, and Candace joins a group of survivors. The connection between existence before the End and during the time that comes after is not hard to see. The fevered aren’t all that different from the factory workers who produce Bibles for Candace’s company. Indeed, one of the projects she works on almost falls apart because it proves hard to source cheap semiprecious stones; Candace is only able to complete the contract because she finds a Chinese company that doesn’t mind too much if its workers die from lung disease. This is a biting indictment of late-stage capitalism and a chilling vision of what comes after, but that doesn’t mean it’s a Marxist screed or a dry Hobbesian thought experiment. This is Ma’s first novel, but her fiction has appeared in distinguished journals, and she won a prize for a chapter of this book. She knows her craft, and it shows. Candace is great, a wonderful mix of vulnerability, wry humor, and steely strength. She’s sufficiently self-aware to see the parallels between her life before the End and the pathology of Shen Fever. Ma also offers lovely meditations on memory and the immigrant experience.
Smart, funny, humane, and superbly well-written.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-26159-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
Perfectly fine despite second-book syndrome.
Cerúlia must grow up and learn to fight for her destiny in Kozloff’s (A Queen in Hiding, 2020) second Nine Realms novel.
Her mother, the Queen of Weirandale, is dead, and Cerúlia isn’t a child any more. She’s left her adoptive peasant family in order to escape evil Lord Matwyck’s clutches and eventually escapes Weirandale altogether. Using her ability to talk to animals and several bird-related aliases, Cerúlia manages to trek her way over the mountains and into the nation of Oromondo. Cerúlia knows that the Oros killed her mother, and she wants to avenge her death. She’s heard of a group of raiders who work to disrupt the Oros as they invade and pillage neighboring nations. When Cerúlia finally manages to find them and convince them to let her join up, she discovers not only new friends, but a newfound sense of purpose. But is any of that enough to win back her throne or even save herself from the Oro army? Interspersed with Cerúlia’s plotline are various threads centering on the Oro army and people, Lord Matwyck’s kindhearted son, and the raiders themselves. This is the second of a four-part series, and, as such, it falls into the expected pitfalls. The self-contained plot works, but it inevitably feels more like a buildup to further books in the series than its own story. It rises above filler, though, and Kozloff is clearly laying the groundwork for something good, particularly with the very last chapter.
Perfectly fine despite second-book syndrome.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16856-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
© Copyright 2025 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.
