An epic, vivid, and gory SF revenge tale with graphic-novel undertones.
In this SF novel, two brothers of vastly different temperaments must fight to liberate their race from merciless alien enslavers.
The peaceful, blue-furred numah are enslaved on Neos, a moon that can no longer be called a moon given the destruction of its planet by the Arbitrators, an all-powerful celestial race. Under the oversight of the physically dominant, bloodthirsty olokun, they work in the mines, digging up aegis ore to construct a giant shield in space. Some among the numah dream of rebellion. Others, like Yoto, seek merely to survive and so allow themselves to become complicit in their overlords’ cruelties. But Yoto, for all his cowardice, is destined for greater things. Though it is his heroic brother, Eon, who is singled out by the alien witch Lagaia to wield a dagger that will overthrow the olokun and maybe the Arbitrators, it is Yoto who becomes entangled with the weapon. It transforms him into a creature of gargantuan size and strength (“He drew energy from within himself and Neos”)—formidable enough, perhaps, to do battle with the vile Gen. Vega and his sadistic son, Cadoc. Can Yoto’s brutal retaliation lead to a better future, or will he cause Neos’ destruction? Viola, Acevedo, and Karpuk present an omniscient, past-tense narrative that focuses on action rather than the characters or setting—although SF elements like the olokun’s organic technology are present. The protagonists lack nuance, serving as archetypes of cowardice, heroism, and villainy. The dialogue, like the prose generally, tends to be workmanlike and aimed toward advancing the plot. The novel’s greatest strength lies in its epic nature. The authors linger over the numah’s subjugation and the olokun’s depravities, stoking readers’ desire for a turnabout. This comes amid setbacks and bloody losses playing out over hundreds of pages. The violence is extreme yet somewhat matter-of-fact in its presentation, as if begging for illustrations. (Indeed, there is a sense throughout of a story intended for adaptation into a manga or anime series.) The book is divided into six parts (plus an epilogue), each with a lurid, black-and-white frontispiece by Bendert. It concludes with full-page character pictures that emphasize the larger-than-life conflict. Fans of kaijin and kaiju media should approve.
An epic, vivid, and gory SF revenge tale with graphic-novel undertones.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2022
ISBN: 979-8986219448
Page Count: 478
Publisher: Hex Publishers
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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