Next book

ANTARCTICA

What does the author of the best-ever Mars epic (Blue Mars, 1996,etc.) do for an encore? He shifts to Antarctica, an environment as near to Mars as you can get on Earth, in a novel set a few years into the 21st century. Earth’s population has risen above ten billion. Global warming is no longer just a theory: Summers in Washington, D.C., for instance, have gone from unbearable to life-threatening. The Sahara is rapidly taking over all of northern Africa. Hardly any forests remain. Oil resources are also waning, and thus there is a call—just as renewal of the international treaty banning mineral exploitation of Antarctica stalls in Congress—to tap into the oil reserves near Ross Island. Surreptitious drilling may already be going on there, in fact, and so an environmentalist senator named Phil Chase dispatches his chief aide, Wade Norton, to investigate. Norton falls in love with the inhospitable continent and, along with others, becomes an “ecoteur,” someone so committed to saving the planet that he—ll engage in sabotage on its behalf. A young laborer (dubbed “X” by the author) joins the campaign, partly to improve his low self-esteem and partly to impress a young scientist and guide, Valerie Kenning. Obviously, Robinson has no love for the “globally downsized post-revolutionary massively fortified stage of very late capitalism” portrayed here. But he’s no Ed Abbey, and his ecoplot seems almost perfunctory. He’s like Michener (when Michener was good). He lays in lore and history and atmosphere with great care: the amazing cold and the equally amazing capacity of humans to endure it; unlikely wildlife; volcanoes steaming amid mountains of ice. And Robinson brings to life the expeditions of Roald Amundsen and Edward Wilson, as well as the history of scientific inquiry into the “least significant” continent. Passionate, informed, mildly flawed, and vastly entertaining.

Pub Date: July 13, 1998

ISBN: 0-553-10063-7

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Bantam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998

Next book

THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA

A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.

A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.

Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.

A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 24


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • New York Times Bestseller

Next book

NINTH HOUSE

With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 24


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • New York Times Bestseller

Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.

Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.

With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019

Close Quickview