An eventful and immersive interdimensional romp.
In Grode’s sci-fi debut, a teenage boy becomes involved in a battle for the fate of the universe.
It’s been two years since Jack Fuller was killed in a tragic accident, leaving his family broken with grief. Although his younger brother, Ben, does his best to persevere, involving himself in sports and leaning on close friends, he can’t escape the feeling that he should have been the one to die. Everything changes when his grandfather Patrick McDugan, a researcher for the U.S. Department of Defense, invents a device that can open doors to parallel dimensions. When Ben accidentally goes through a portal with his grandfather, his first contact is with a world named Terra; in its version of the United States, called the United American Commonwealth, environmentalism is paramount, but the citizens are closely monitored by the government. Doppelgängers exist of almost everyone Ben knows, although in some cases, their relationships and even their personalities dramatically differ. When Terran officials capture his grandfather, Ben is tasked with keeping his technology out of the hands of a ruthless and formidable government agency. Grode’s writing is densely saturated with detail, taking plenty of time to explore his rich concept. The nature of technology and its capacity to shape society for better or worse is a recurring theme; for instance, Ben’s grandfather solemnly speculates that sharing his portal device with the world would bring about “Revolutionary change and…chaos.” On a more playful note, the narrative introduces several ethical questions as characters meet doppelgängers of their friends, family members, and romantic interests. Although the story centers primarily on Ben, the close third-person perspective frequently shifts to other characters, including his parents and grandfather. The result is a spectrum of different outlooks regarding relationships, including high school romance as well as Patrick’s quest to reunite with the love of his life. Early on, the pacing is slow, but the tension eventually amps up to action-thriller levels. The story finishes with a satisfying resolution, laying the groundwork for future adventures.
An eventful and immersive interdimensional romp.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-977984-95-1
Page Count: 488
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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
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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