A smart, if dizzying, SF sequel that never slows down.
This second installment of a series finds a human Watchman attempting to keep the peace between two combative universes while a third force interferes.
Violet Rain is a virtual reality engineer from the 25th century. She’s also a Watchman, a select being for whom the boundaries of time and space mean little. From the space station STS-99, she conducts “multiverse surveillance” alongside fellow Watchmen Ben, Ralff, and Yverra. As Violet explores the Yin-Yang Boundary between two clashing universes—using the body of a microscopic tardigrade—something attacks the station. A “timeslip” to an adjacent dimension saves the Watchmen. Golaeth, the “baby-sitter entity” that tracks new universes, confirms that a rogue cosmos is on the loose. In the midst of the Watchmen’s search, Violet visits her human ancestors, Virginia and Alan, in 21st-century North Carolina. They introduce her to Janus Parker, a VR “whiz kid” and co-founder of the pivotal tech company Canny Divide. Meanwhile, Emperor Calaneris, hell-bent on destroying the Yin Universe, plucks Xoan-Paulo Hilario, Violet’s former fling, from the doomed Mars Colony. Calaneris turns Xoan-Paulo into the Enforcer, a deadly cyborg loyal to nobody but the emperor. While Janus shows Violet around California and Las Vegas, the Enforcer begins hunting these two instrumental figures protecting the Yin Universe. Rew’s latest adventure doesn’t overplay its cosmic motifs, keeping plenty of action Earth-bound after the setup. There’s a lively weight to the Enforcer’s chase and a self-aware reference from the film Terminator (“Come with me if you want to live”) that will make SF fans chuckle. Violet is a protagonist readers may be divided on; she’s spunky but says glib things like “I never thought about the 21st century much. Everybody mostly remembers it as the century where the world ignored climate change.” Readers meet the story’s titular hero, the tardigrade, which can survive extremes of temperature and pressure and even “go into hibernation and reawaken years later when conditions improved.” The author’s joy in combining hard science with high-concept space opera is evident on every page, though the grandeur of universes in motion sometimes threatens to diminish her characters.
A smart, if dizzying, SF sequel that never slows down.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 291
Publisher: Sophont Press
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Punchy, plausible, and bittersweet; studded with zingers until the very last line.
The desperate logistics of planning for the apocalypse reach their climax in the conclusion to a space opera trilogy that began with The Collapsing Empire (2017) and The Consuming Fire (2018).
Time is running out for Cardenia Wu-Patrick, aka Grayland II, emperox of the planet-spanning Interdependency. As she struggles to come up with a plan to save the billions who will suffer and starve in the wake of the collapse of the Flow, the extradimensional network connecting the planets of her far-flung empire, her nemesis, Lady Nadashe Nohamapetan, continues to scheme against her. With the support of many of the noble houses—who plan to abandon their subjects while preserving themselves and their wealth in a flight to End, the only self-sufficient planet in the Interdependency—Nadashe now seeks the throne for herself. Meanwhile, Cardenia’s lover, the Flow physicist Lord Marce Claremont, attempts to devise a scientific solution to the Flow collapse, unaware that Cardenia is hiding vital data from him. And the clever but hot-tempered Lady Kiva Lagos attempts to spy on Nadashe in hopes of defusing the coup, but she may have gotten herself in too deep this time. Scalzi treads a delicate line here: He set out to chart an apocalypse, and a deus ex machina would be cheating. The book also serves as an acknowledgment that intelligence and good intentions are not an impregnable armor against venality and the pitiless laws of physics. (In addition to slowing down Scalzi's writing—something he acknowledges in an afterword—the current sociopolitical situation in the U.S. has clearly flavored the story.) Given those parameters, Scalzi plays fair while still offering his readers some hope. And even when depicting the direst situations, Scalzi’s work retains its snarky cheer.
Punchy, plausible, and bittersweet; studded with zingers until the very last line.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8916-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A captivating start to what promises to be an epic post-apocalyptic fable.
The first volume in Carey’s Rampart trilogy is set centuries into a future shaped by war and climate change, where the scant remains of humankind are threatened by genetically modified trees and plants.
Teenager Koli Woodsmith lives in Mythen Rood, a village of about 200 people in a place called Ingland, which has other names such as “Briton and Albion and Yewkay.” He was raised to cultivate, and kill, the wood from the dangerous trees beyond Mythen Rood’s protective walls. Mythen Rood is governed by the Ramparts (made up entirely of members of one family—what a coincidence), who protect the village with ancient, solar-powered tech. After the Waiting, a time in which each child, upon turning 15, must decide their future, Koli takes the Rampart test: He must “awaken” a piece of old tech. After he inevitably fails, he steals a music player which houses a charming “manic pixie dream girl” AI named Monono, who reveals a universe of knowledge. Of course, a little bit of knowledge can threaten entire societies or, in Koli’s case, a village held in thrall to a family with unfettered access to powerful weapons. Koli attempts to use the device to become a Rampart, he becomes their greatest threat, and he’s exiled to the world beyond Mythen Rood. Luckily, the pragmatic Koli has his wits, Monono, and an ally in Ursala, a traveling doctor who strives to usher in a healthy new generation of babies before humanity dies out for good. Koli will need all the help he can get, especially when he’s captured by a fearsome group ruled by a mad messianic figure who claims to have psychic abilities. Narrator Koli’s inquisitive mind and kind heart make him the perfect guide to Carey’s (Someone Like Me, 2018, etc.) immersive, impeccably rendered world, and his speech and way of life are different enough to imagine the weight of what was lost but still achingly familiar, and as always, Carey leavens his often bleak scenarios with empathy and hope. Readers will be thrilled to know the next two books will be published in short order.
A captivating start to what promises to be an epic post-apocalyptic fable.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-47753-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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