A supernatural tale with engaging characters and psychic powers that lays the groundwork for a planned series.
Teenagers with supernatural abilities may be the only ones who can stop creatures from a parallel world from consuming all life on Earth in Alexander’s debut sci-fi thriller.
Sixteen-year-old Kyle Tanner doesn’t stay at schools for very long, as he either flunks out or gets kicked out. His problems, at least in part, stem from his recurring nightmares of terrifying creatures from another world. These dreams, however, make Kyle an ideal candidate for mysterious Banville Academy. Dr. Alistair Jameson gives the boy a tour of the school, introducing him to peers who have psychic gifts, including telepathy, telekinesis, and empathic abilities. Kyle, like Jameson himself, has a rare gift called Night Walking, in which his consciousness leaves his body during sleep. The teen then roams the “antiverse,” which is populated by Night People that feed on energy from the waking world. Kyle faces derision from “telek” Cody and “telep” Ian, fellow students who can’t comprehend Kyle’s ability. There are definite perks to Banville, though: for the first time, Kyle actually makes friends, including a telep named Cheng Wu and Jameson’s granddaughter, an empath named Kira who can see from Kyle’s aura that he’s lonely. He also finds the potential for romance with telek Kate Garcia. But a threat looms over the school and the entire world. The sinister Dragnars hope to unite the antiverse and our world, allowing Night People to slaughter humans—and they begin by targeting Banville students for elimination. Alexander builds a solid foundation for his psychic-teen tale by concentrating on his fictional universe’s more relatable qualities. For example, Banville is, in many ways, a typical school. The way that teleks and teleps despise one another, for example, is reminiscent of the familiar jocks-versus-nerds dynamic. Likewise, other students constantly question Kyle’s gift and his worth, especially after Jameson puts together a team to combat a potential Dragnar assault. Kyle himself hardly understands how Night Walking works, which allows readers to learn about it alongside him during practices. The glimpses of the antiverse are the story’s most vivid moments, as when Kyle spies “a torrent of black water gushing from a break in the rocks far below” and later discerns “a lilting tune just out of hearing…a charming melody [that] grows stronger by the second.” There’s an assortment of remarkable creatures, such as “ravenors,” which are hairless, sexless, and at least 10 feet tall. The most nerve-wracking enemies, though, remain unseen, sometimes using their powers to make people watch—or attack—Banville students. The narrative also delves into numerous characters’ histories; Kate’s brother, Quin, has been “in kind of a coma since birth,” so she asks Kyle to try using his powers to reach him. The ending offers only slight resolution—one character even acknowledges the plethora of unanswered questions, such as why the Dragnars attempted to kidnap one specific person—but it makes for a fine setup for a sequel.
A supernatural tale with engaging characters and psychic powers that lays the groundwork for a planned series.Pub Date: May 15, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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