A fun and fast-paced space opera.
A young racer enters a competition to save his planet in this sci-fi debut.
In 3834, the planets of the anarchic Milky Way Galaxy are in constant danger of war and invasion from their neighbors. The only strategy to guarantee planetary safety is to come under the shield of the Coalition Protectors of Peace, and the only way to accomplish that is to finish first in the yearly Grand Battle. The Grand Battle is a race, where pilots from different planets ride their battle jets into a vortex, attempting to avoid its obstacles and each other’s firepower. Sashi Oon, the sponsor of her two-planet system, assumes the responsibility for drafting the racer with the best chance of winning, and guiding him through the multi-tiered competition. Only recently awoken from a coma, and still bearing the scars of a recent invasion of her home worlds by the lava soldiers of Maelae, Sashi feels unsure whether she is equal to the task. Against conventional wisdom, she chooses Rev Arden, a young and untested pilot from Earth with whom she has a past. With the help of a motley group of strivers from across the galaxy, Sashi and Rev must beat the odds, save their home worlds, and defeat the Maelae racer that seems intent on eliminating Rev in the Grand Battle. Felando has created a rich, complex universe that immediately captivates the reader, balancing the stakes of the race against the celebrity of the participants, the politics of various planets, the egos of journalists, and the inescapable slogans of advertisers. The author, a master of slogans himself, creates earwigs that stick in the reader’s head, from the tag line of the race (“Win the race. Save your planet.”) to the Maelae’s terrifying motto (“Raw material, you will die!”). While Felando certainly borrows from other sci-fi works and franchises, the novel manages to feel fresh and compelling, with an incisive wit and an imaginative eye. Accompanied by original chapter illustrations, the book offers a universe to which readers will surely wish to return.
A fun and fast-paced space opera.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9967357-0-4
Page Count: 560
Publisher: McBarron Books
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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