An imaginative, entertaining, sometimes over-the-top mash-up of Paradise Lost and The Clan of the Cave Bear.
Primitive hominids get caught up in a titanic war between heaven and hell in this bombastic fantasy.
Gordon’s novel centers on Adam, the son of African Homo Erectus parents, who sports a Homo Sapiens-ish prominent chin, bulging forehead, hairless body, and mechanical aptitude that lets him invent a nifty spear thrower. He also has the marks of a Chosen One: His birth is attended by apocalyptic fireballs; he gets bitten by a demon-headed snake; and he has visions of a flying dragon. Growing up, Adam weathers starvation and cannibalism, a diet rich in bugs and bats, the loss of loved ones to a lion, and a blood feud with his domineering stepfather, Hanok, that leads to violence and estrangement from his clan. Adam then heads eastward to a land called Eden with a demon named Mephistopheles, who promises him knowledge of all the world’s secrets and, more importantly, an introduction to a beautiful woman who shares Adam’s physical traits. Unfortunately, Eden proves to be a sulphureous labor camp where hominid slaves are ruled by preening devils, from Moloch to the winged scorpion Beelzebub. On the bright side, Eve is indeed pretty and nice. After a harrowing tour of Hell, Adam and Eve get an audience with Lucifer himself, who tells them that they will play a leading role in his plan to bring God to the bargaining table—after they undergo a torturous “cleansing” that will remove all love and compassion from their souls. Gordon’s yarn shines in its first part, which paints a gritty portrait of Stone Age life, from the constant search for food and fire to Hanok’s campaign to usurp clan leader Kren, which is told in shrewdly psychological prose (“He would bide his time and lay the groundwork by assuming a self-important bearing, and began to undercut Kren’s authority with a questioning look, or a sad shake of his head, to Kren’s every decision”). The book’s Dantean second part feels less original, with overblown demonic caricatures chortling at their own villainy and a climactic battle of thunderous superpowers. Still, Gordon’s vigorous writing and rich evocation of a Paleolithic world make for an absorbing read.
An imaginative, entertaining, sometimes over-the-top mash-up of Paradise Lost and The Clan of the Cave Bear.Pub Date: May 27, 2023
ISBN: 9798396189256
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2024
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
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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