There is something for every fantasy fan in this engaging tale about a brilliant scientist.
In this fantasy sequel, will love conquer all?
There are three perspectives in Latshaw’s book. The narrative toggles between “THEN,” the actions in the dim past—roughly readers’ present—when Sean Brathius sets everything in motion; “NOW”; and “ICELYN,” those “NOW” parts that Icelyn Brathius, the hero of the author’s previous volume, The Threat Below (2015), imparts to the audience. Sean, a scientific genius, created the Croathus, a race intended to work for humans and have benevolent feelings for them. But then, in the best fantasy tradition—playing God seldom ends well—things go horribly awry. Sean’s prime creations (super-Croathus?) are the brothers Amperous and Omathis. They both escape their lab confinement in a rage, and their differing feelings—Amperous’ deep and lasting enmity and Omathis’ ambivalence toward their creator—are important elements in the plot. Sean tries with sketchy biochemistry to renew feelings of love in the Croathus. But at a critical moment, Travis Nilsing, his son-in-law, instead commits a destructive act that affects the Croathus population. Nothing good comes of that, needless to say, and the rest of the book encompasses the playing out of that misguided deed. Those who have not read the first volume will be somewhat, though not hopelessly, lost (Who are the Anaghwins? Who is Belubus?). But Latshaw is an accomplished writer, and he will keep readers enthralled. Icelyn is as attractive and spirited a character as she was in the first installment and much wiser now. The old theme of the arrogance of the scientist is handled well. Sean genuinely loved his creations and wanted affection in return. But eventually, he tried too many times and made things just too complicated. He finally makes one last attempt. Will his descendant Icelyn—who had left the family’s Mountaintop preserve—be able to unite the races?
There is something for every fantasy fan in this engaging tale about a brilliant scientist.Pub Date: May 28, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 549
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2020
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
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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