Compelling characters, riveting tension, and rich, complex worldbuilding make this a must-read for fantasy fans.
Hamilton (The Faerie Queen, 2014) launches a planned YA historical fantasy series driven by a strong heroine, intrigue, mystery, and a little bit of romance.
For years Nica has been at the mercy of her abusive father, a ruthless ruler determined to take over a neighboring kingdom. Aided by her friend Toppen, Nica finally tries to escape her father, only to plunge into a battle for survival. She teams up with a young mercenary named Jonn Shanks, and together they begin to parse clues about both her father and her past. When Nica discovers that she isn’t who she thought she was, she is suddenly in a race against time with Shanks to defeat her father before he captures her and destroys what little good is still left in her world. The secret to victory lies in the mythical Getheas Stone. Nica and Shanks must decipher clues in ancient quatrains to find the stone before her father does. The innocent romance between Nica and Shanks is endearing, though her jealousy of his princess “boss” feels petty and shallow given the enormity of the stakes they are facing. Hamilton’s prose shines on the page, delivering brilliant descriptions and fast-paced plotting with plenty of tension. The prophetic quatrains are based on the 16th-century writings of Nostradamus, lending authenticity to the story. Nica is brave and strong, but her flaws and vulnerability make her a compelling heroine for whom it’s easy to cheer. Likewise, Shanks and his best friend, Sebande, are complex, intriguing heroes who are equally as dynamic. The trio drives the book, resulting in unexpected plot turns, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and moments of tension-relieving laughter. Secondary characters, such as her depraved father and the wise castle scholar, are well-drawn too. The way Hamilton cleverly layers in pieces of information that become important later is excellent, creating a tightly plotted storyline in a detailed, lush fantasy world. The ending calls upon inner strength and bravery from the young trio, but plenty of loose ends promise another book in the outstanding series.
Compelling characters, riveting tension, and rich, complex worldbuilding make this a must-read for fantasy fans.Pub Date: July 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5142-8350-9
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Gaslamp Books
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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