A grand saga, though not recommended for newcomers, the implicit assumption being that you’re familiar with both the...
Sixth installment (Operation Shield, 2014, etc.) in Shepherd’s ferocious, far-future, multilateral power struggle.
The context, what with opposing human Federation and League civilizations, the humanoid alien Talee and numerous factions within each, is far from easy to assimilate. Federation Spec Ops warrior Cassandra “Sandy” Kresnov and her fellow GIs, synthetic humans with superhuman powers, have taken it upon themselves to try to prevent another devastating war with the League. But with no functioning government, FedInt (intelligence) feuding bitterly with FSA (security), and few natural human organics who trust the GIs, it isn’t easy. And when a quarter of a million people die in the destruction of the League moon Cresta, another war seems inevitable, especially when it becomes clear that those responsible are in the grip of a technologically induced psychosis that threatens to infect the rest of humanity. Then the synthetic Talee operative Cai shows up, warning that the Talee once nearly destroyed themselves in the same technologically induced insanity and will go to any lengths to prevent a recurrence. Renaldo Takewashi, who developed the synthetics and their technological implants using ancient Talee technology, arrives with both the League and the Talee in hot pursuit. Takewashi insists that advanced technology implanted in the head of Kiril, the youngest of the three human children Sandy has adopted, is the key to preventing the psychosis—the same technology the Talee fear losing control of. Shepherd, who hails from Australia, writes sustained, intense and gripping action sequences interspersed with powerful dialogue that delves into the complex technological, philosophical and political implications of the situation. Evocative and eloquent, the whole impressive package hurtles along at a relentless pace.
A grand saga, though not recommended for newcomers, the implicit assumption being that you’re familiar with both the characters and the background.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61614-992-5
Page Count: 520
Publisher: Pyr/Prometheus Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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 ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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