A gritty, unbalanced work that has its head in the stars but its feet firmly on 21st-century Earth.
In Lambright’s debut war novel, the future is revealed to be just as violent as the past as Paul Thompson battles insurgents—not to mention his own combat trauma—on a faraway colony planet in the 24th century.
Paul is an armored infantry officer on Juneau 3, one of the countless worlds inhabited by humans after the mass exodus to the stars that began in the mid-21st century after the invention of the Glimmer drive. No native intelligent life exists on any of the colony worlds; however, the Pan-American forces are still needed to quell the dissident activity that seems to pop up on nearly every planet, no matter how remote. Paul’s current assignment, his third combat rotation, is so far turning out to be his most intense yet. The Baradna Valley, which some readers may see as comparable to desolate Afghanistan, is full of action that keeps Paul and his team on their toes—in fact, even with the military’s modern technology, which includes armored combat suits and digital halos that connect soldiers in the blink of an eye, Paul is experiencing stress levels that are approaching unhealthy. Nevertheless, not wanting to let his team down, he continues to go out on deadly missions while reminiscing about the path that led him to Juneau 3, changing his life forever. Although Lambright, who is a veteran, provides detailed insight into the realities of being in combat, the novel’s 24th-century setting is somewhat awkward. Paul fights Pashtun, Bedouin and Tuareg insurgents in the deserts of alien planets that are almost exact replicas of certain areas of Earth; the sense that current-day issues have been simply copied and pasted onto another century and planet is overwhelming. The lack of a cohesive plot is also problematic. If the story were slower and more introspective, delving deeper into Paul’s mental and emotional states, then the lack of a traditional story structure might work a bit better. But Lambright doesn’t quite dig deep enough, resulting in a novel that always feels like it’s finally building up to the big event yet never does.
A gritty, unbalanced work that has its head in the stars but its feet firmly on 21st-century Earth.Pub Date: June 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499307061
Page Count: 334
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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