Advanced physics and tech and talking ferrets add to the fun in this lively SF series launch.
In the opener to the Biogensis War SF series, set in the far future, the Akkadian Empire craves access to a distant planet’s exotic biology for nefarious purposes.
Richman starts his sprawling new military/SF series with an infodump, but patient readers will be rewarded. We learn that in the 25th century, humankind has acquired faster-than-light modes of travel, but the scheming, despotic Akkadians are shut out of a space-folding stargate technology developed by the prevailing Geminate Alliance. So the Akkadians activate their hidden network of sleeper agents and assassins in a desperate bid for supremacy and control of a terrifying biological weapon. Within the bounds of the Geminate Alliance lies the unique planet of Vermilion—the one place where organic matter evolved in right-handed, or chiral, molecular form. The rest of the universe is left-handed. At the deGrasse space station, Clint Janus, a psychotic top Navy scientist, is an Akkadian spy. He stages murders and coverups to smuggle experimental samples to his villainous leaders. But along the way, he dabbles in illegal human cloning using the right-hand chiral DNA. As a result, Micah Case, a space pilot who’s part of an elite commando team, now exists in twain. The original Micah is a badly mangled survivor of an arranged “accident”; his reverse-chiral clone shares his memories and a “quantum entanglement” telepathic link. Both are initially presumed dead—but still wind up scapegoated and pursued by a deceived Navy intelligence. Fortunately, a small group within the Geminate upper echelon suspects a conspiracy. After a bumpy but bracing beginning, the intricately plotted material holds reader interest throughout. Technology and bizarre extrapolations show a high level of narrative imagination, and even when the author introduces an unlikely menagerie of “enhanced” talking-animal sidekicks, the material binds together. Despite deep-space settings, no intelligent alien life is mentioned. That’s fine; competing human empires are trouble enough. Numerous future volumes are promised.
Advanced physics and tech and talking ferrets add to the fun in this lively SF series launch.Pub Date: May 8, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-50-011720-5
Page Count: 436
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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