This novel’s offbeat narrative style and absorbing protagonist help to overcome its occasional missteps.
In Levin’s sci-fi debut, a young man in the 24th century travels through space and time, confronts aliens, and falls in love.
Being an Eisenstein is far from easy. For centuries, 16-year-old Michael’s scientist forbears created bigger and deadlier weapons of mass destruction. The American Isles, formerly known as the United States, has been devastated by world wars and melting polar ice caps over the years. Now, in 2378, its citizens believe that the government’s been lying for years about extraterrestrials living in underwater biospheres on Earth. Michael fears that his father, Benjamin, has knowledge of the aliens, and he also thinks that the government will soon expect him, Michael, to invent new weapons. Michael accompanies his father to what he presumes is a meeting about weapons development, but a trek into dark tunnels results in him being knocked unconscious. He awakens to meet Ezekial, a time traveler who takes him through a wormhole to another planet. There, Michael encounters people who see all Eisensteins as a menace, and some claim shared history with him that he doesn’t remember. Soon, evil beings are out for his blood, plotting an attack against Earth and threatening his girlfriend, Maya. Levin’s unorthodox tale begins as a series of diary entries in which Michael addresses readers in time-stamped sections interspersed with other characters’ perspectives. Familiar genre elements, such as teleportation, are coupled with less recognizable but equally chic ones, such as Michael’s newly “extended mind,” which gives him powers akin to telepathy. Levin grounds the tale by giving the protagonist an appreciation for ancient popular culture (including a reference to the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Nevertheless, despite relatively minimal time travel, the story’s chronology gets confusingly jumbled. Fifteen years after the initial action, for example, the year is noted as 2378, then 2393, and later, 2387. Although this book reveals some things about Michael’s mysterious background, there remain myriad worlds to explore in planned subsequent volumes.
This novel’s offbeat narrative style and absorbing protagonist help to overcome its occasional missteps.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-1158-0
Page Count: 374
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2017
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
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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