An engaging tale of the walking dead and the likely start of a smashing series.
In this debut novel, Texans fight to stay alive in the wake of an undead apocalypse.
After dead people start attacking the living, Bill McGuire plans to flee Fort Worth as quickly as he can. But after Bill saves Kim Leeds from her undead fiance, the two have no choice but to retreat to his apartment. Both want to check on relatives: Bill’s family is in New Jersey, and Kim has a sister at Bright Well University, which, according to the radio (their only news source), is one of the nearby safe havens. Bill convinces Kim to stay put, at least until the horde of undead outside his apartment abates. Over at the John Peter Smith Hospital’s psych ward, Grace is a patient who wisely absconds from an onslaught of the biting dead. She arms herself with a claw hammer and takes refuge at a seemingly abandoned house. Though she prefers the isolation, Grace must contend with the living and the dead as well as occasional voices. Bill and Kim likewise run into a fair share of fellow survivors, most of whom are rather contemptible or outright lethal. This may soon include Curtis Mintzer, who heads a cultish group that believes the undead uprising is a divine punishment called the Great Retribution. Holed up in a local high school, “congregation” members occasionally go out to scavenge supplies while some search for escape from Curtis’ group. All the while, the dead continue to roam with an insatiable appetite that threatens Texas—and possibly the entire world.
Redmond’s diverting novel checks off several genre staples. Bill and Kim, for example, spend a good deal of time fortifying his apartment and go days or weeks without seeing other living beings. And some humans prove just as deadly as the undead, if not worse. But though myriad characters populate the narrative, the author astutely spends the first half concentrating on Bill, Kim, and Grace. Their two stories aptly dramatize the characters’ increasing desperation as apartment complexes and houses, which initially seem like the safest places, eventually become hubs for violence and death. Bill and Kim are appealing leads who are generally surrounded by copious indisputable villains. Grace, in contrast, is gleefully complicated: She’s strong and capable, but readers ultimately learn that her residence at a psych ward was for a good reason. Redmond provides distinction among the bands of survivors, namely by how they refer to the undead. Curtis’ followers declare them “heathens” while Grace calls them “slayers,” after the media-dubbed killer the Night Slayer—and no one uses the z-word. Concise descriptions keep the story moving at a steady clip even when characters stay in one location for prolonged periods. At the same time, the author strays a bit from the traditional walking dead scenario with an added supernatural component, though it’s primarily ambiguous. This aspect is something a potential sequel could explore along with other elements, from a few surprises at the end to characters who remain a mystery.
An engaging tale of the walking dead and the likely start of a smashing series. (author’s note)Pub Date: May 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73320-160-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bowker
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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