A fine sequel in a sci-fi series that’s proving to be a must-read.
McCormick (A Voice in the Thunder, 2012) delivers on the promise of the first book in his Children and Ghosts sci-fi quintet with this grand sequel.
With the city of Bellerophon destroyed in the previous novel, the Galactic Coalition has been plunged into civil war between government loyalists and those who support Gov. Warren. However, there’s far more at stake than who runs human civilization; a few people, such as criminal Christmas “Crazy-eyes” Parker, know that a godlike computer threatens the human race, and a few others, including Detective Vera Ford, aim to find out about it. But in a galaxy consumed by conflict, most people—including mercenary Regina Bell, former detective Ben Weizmann, industrial mogul Atusa Navarro and other survivors—are just trying to stay alive. Legion, an ancient computer built by a lost race, is setting events in motion to fulfill its own plans, but its creators also built a fail-safe computer called Ziz, which will stop at nothing to defeat Legion’s schemes. Meanwhile, seven children across the galaxy feel drawn to the planet Gadara, although none of them can say why—perhaps the race that built Legion isn’t quite as lost as some people think. McCormick delivers rough-and-ready action, devious political intrigue and emotionally charged back stories in a galaxy full of fantastic speculative elements and ideas. McCormick has an epic tale to tell, and the talent to tell it. Readers who haven’t read the first book, however, shouldn’t start with this installment, which spends very little time recapping past events. However, the author’s intelligent prose and fast-paced plotting make for another book that sci-fi fans shouldn’t miss; it’s satisfying on its own yet still makes readers feel that all they’ve read so far is merely prelude—and that the real conflict is just getting started.
A fine sequel in a sci-fi series that’s proving to be a must-read.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494720063
Page Count: 754
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Transporting and unputdownable; an appealing combination of deep and page-turning.
An intrepid teen encounters the dark secrets of the elite in her climate-ravaged world in this translated work from South Korea.
Sixteen-year-old Jeon Chobahm is shocked to learn that Goh Haeri, the beloved reality TV star who happens to be Chobahm’s look-alike, just died by suicide—and also that she’s being asked to become Haeri’s secret replacement. In their frozen, post-apocalyptic world, Chobahm, like everyone around her, leads a bleak life. She bundles up daily against the dangerous cold and toils in a power plant. But now she’ll live Haeri’s cushy life in Snowglobe, an exclusive, glass-dome-enclosed community, where the climate is mild, and the resident actors’ lives are broadcast as entertainment for those in the open world. As glamorous as life there may seem, however, Chobahm quickly learns that there’s a sinister underbelly: People are killed off when they’re no longer useful, and there’s something strange about Haeri’s family dynamics. As she meets a host of new companions, including Yi Bonwhe, the heir of Snowglobe’s founding family, Chobahm discovers a devastating secret and embarks on a risky plan to expose the truth. Climate change, societal inequity, and the ethics of escaping from our own lives by watching others’ are addressed in this intelligent, absorbing book. Chobahm is a complex character inhabiting a strongly developed world, and her compassion, ambition, outrage, and sorrow ring true.
Transporting and unputdownable; an appealing combination of deep and page-turning. (Dystopian. 12-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593484975
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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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