A fresh and well-researched saga that’s a pleasure to read.
Dooley’s genre-blending series-starter combines aspects of SF and historical fiction to explore the sweeping history of Thailand.
The story begins in December 1864 with a streak of light in the sky, followed by a crash in the Thai countryside. The craft’s ghostly, parasitic inhabitant escapes the crash and takes a passing Thai boy, Chanchai, as its host. The starving and sick 4-year-old, unaware of the alien’s presence, stumbles away from the crash, and his infirmities soon disappear. He then falls asleep in a boat that carries him to Bangkok. In a riverside market, Chanchai receives care and support from a band of fellow orphans, a local Chinese fruit seller, and eventually Prince Vajirañāṇa and King Chulalongkorn. The royals give Chanchai a last name and permit a British schoolteacher to teach him English, mentor him, and finally, in 1885, take him to King’s College in England for a university education. As he nears his 30s, he experiences a queer awakening that leaves him shaken; he’s also apparently the victim of a bizarre attack by Jack the Ripper himself. Chanchai eagerly fulfills his promise to return to Thailand, where he joins the royal government’s reformation efforts by becoming a monk and educating children. Because the monastery has no mirrors, Chanchai only learns that his body stopped aging in his 30s when Prince Vajirañāṇa visits him. After Chanchai leaves the monastery, he goes on a surprising and thoughtful journey through political history. Although he witnesses major world events, the narrative remains grounded and even poignant as readers experience Thailand’s nation-building and existential struggles in the 20th century. The speed of the narrative, which encompasses events from 1864 to 2005, leads to some oversimplifications and flattening of political perspectives. However, Chanchai’s decisions to follow or abandon political movements and leaders fit his character well. The SF side of the narrative is sometimes frustrating; Chanchai has multiple encounters with beings like himself, called threlphax,which are wiped from his memory. One hopes that more information will emerge as the Chronicles of the Threlphax continue.
A fresh and well-researched saga that’s a pleasure to read.Pub Date: June 25, 2026
ISBN: 9798317837044
Page Count: 348
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.
After purchasing a dilapidated, century-old starship called the Destitute, Torian Razner discovers that the moss covering it is, in fact, a deeply sarcastic sentient computer with abandonment issues.
Torian’s sister, Celise, is dying. Determined to save her life by getting her to a distant planet with air she can breathe, Torian ignores her former captain Amelia Perrosk’s warning that it’s an impossible task (along with any romantic feelings she might have for Amelia). Using the only ionite bars she has to her name, Torian purchases an ancient, moss-covered alien starship that appears to be on its last legs, so to speak. She hardly expected the moss to be a sentient computer or for it to hold a century-old grudge against its former alien captain. Moss quickly proves itself to be acerbic, intelligent, and rightly angry after being having been left behind for 100 years by its former captain. The two form a reluctant and surprising alliance, Torian proving to Moss that not all captains are “dog-turd fungus,” and they both gradually evolve into the best versions of themselves, human or otherwise. It’s obvious from the early pages that Thorne has crafted a story tailored to fans of Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series and Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. Falling somewhere between the two, this is a delightful mashup of romance, found family, and a touch of violence as Moss grapples with its feelings about its former captain and the unexpected kindness that Torian shows. Sweet without being overly saccharine, it’s a book for readers who want the adventure that comes with the vastness of outer space without its harsher realities.
A cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414144
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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