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
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
