A spellbinding yarn about people caught in an open-ended space puzzle, told with force and gravity.
A massive, enigmatic object appears near Earth and halts the planet’s rotation in Iovino’s SF debut.
At some point in the near future, a huge, opaque, vaguely dart-shaped object suddenly materializes in the atmosphere over North America, “ensconced in sunlight, enrobed in shimmering, purpled translucence.” Then Earth and the moon both stop rotating. Although the sudden stop doesn’t initially create the doomsday seismic and inertial forces that science would predict, Eurasia is plunged into darkness, and the Americas suffer blazing, continual daylight. All artificial satellites hurtle off into space, and the small crew of the International Space Station attempt a desperate return to solid ground with a soyuz spacecraft. In a tapped-out Colorado mining town reliant on the nearby military base, both a young priest struggling with his ministry and his sister, an aerospace engineer, will play key parts in the story as the paralysis of the globe creates unnatural tides, tremors, and even frightening wildlife behavior. Humans, cut off from conventional communications, fall prey to fear, violence, and religious fanaticism. For a story about an immobile planet, Iovino crafts an exciting plotline that never stops. The pages speedily turn, and the orbiting subplots and numerous characters appealingly recall all-star 1970s disaster epics. As a bonus, the most heroic roles, once filled by men like George Kennedy or Charlton Heston in such films, go to strong female characters. The author teases readers with explanations for the cosmic cataclysm but is miserly when it comes to delivering any real answers, unless an asteroid-field of sequels are on their way. Nonetheless, this book’s action, suspense, and emotional elements will keep readers transfixed.
A spellbinding yarn about people caught in an open-ended space puzzle, told with force and gravity.Pub Date: June 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-717460-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: LAB Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.
Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.
The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-88743-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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