This novel’s informative passages succeed, but its drama is too dryly conveyed.
The second volume in Ames’ series that fuses introductory genetics with SF adventure.
Homo transformans are humans who can transform into animals; they arose on Earth in the centuries after a supernova bathed the planet in gamma radiation. The House of H’Aleth is a community dedicated to the peaceful co-existence of Homo transformans and Homo sapiens. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Cassius Foundation, run by the maniacal Rex Cassius; they manipulate human and animal genes to create ever more powerful hybrids. Cassius competes with the Biogenics Corporation for territory and resources, especially much-prized dragon genes. Into this frightful tableau comes H’Ilgraith, cousin to H’Assandra, Mistress of the House of H’Aleth. H’Ilgraith possesses a restless intellect that’s guided her to the healing arts, and she can change into a great horned owl, a gray fox, a badger, and a lynx. When her search for the calypso plant, which can help treat nervous disorders, brings her into Cassius territory, she discovers a fortress and a mass grave for failed hybrids. Luckily, she also meets Jak, a lone-wolf Homo transformans who agrees to escort her through the dangerous lands. Jak also has a secret that makes him valuable to H’Aleth’s overall mission. Ames dials up the adventure in this sequel to the educational Homo Transformans (2018), and she continues to offer informative tidbits about genetics and evolution, as in the line, “one could inherit a gene and even pass it on to offspring without ever experiencing its effects (gene expression).” The book also includes maps, appendices, a glossary, and a list of references. When characters travel in animal form and display their natural skills for acquiring food and avoiding predators, Ames’ prose channels the elegance of naturalist Sally Carrighar, who wrote One Day on Beetle Rock (1946). However, the quieter, human interactions feel too removed from the action to feel properly dramatic. Rex, for example, sends an “emissary” to learn about Biogenics’ operation; that emissary has a page of heated dialogue but is never named. Despite the excellent black-and-white illustrations by design agency Epic Made, this sequel still feels a bit underdeveloped.
This novel’s informative passages succeed, but its drama is too dryly conveyed.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64663-002-8
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 deceptively quiet beginning rockets to a thrilling finish, preparing us for the next volume’s undoubtedly explosive finale.
The third installment of a necromantic science-fantasy series continues working at puzzles of identity and the meaning of loyalty.
Previously (Gideon the Ninth, 2019; Harrow the Ninth, 2020), sullen but brilliant necromancer Harrowhark consumed the soul of Gideon, her foulmouthed cavalier, to become a Lyctor, a semi-immortal officer in the Emperor Undying’s court. In a desperate attempt to preserve Gideon’s identity, Harrow deliberately erased the other woman from her memories, leaving herself confused to the point of delusion, unable to access her full powers, and vulnerable to enemies both within and without the Emperor’s court. This novel introduces Nona, a sweet but extraordinarily naïve young woman who appears to be in Harrowhark’s body but with Gideon’s golden eyes, lacking both necromantic abilities and any memories prior to six months ago. Nona’s been happy despite her precarious living situation in a war-torn city threatened by the necromantic Houses and their foe, the Blood of Eden. Unfortunately, what fragile peace she has cannot last, and everything depends on recovering Nona’s memories and returning to Harrowhark’s home in the Ninth House, there to finally release the deadly threat lurking in the Locked Tomb. But who is Nona, really: Harrowhark, Gideon, a blend of both young women…or someone else entirely? (The reader will figure it out long before the characters do.) Meanwhile, the Emperor and Harrowhark meet in dreams, where he recounts events of 10,000 years ago, when, as a newly fledged necromancer, his conflict with the corrupt trillionaires who planned to escape the dying Earth and leave the remaining billions to perish led to nuclear apocalypse. It’s pretty gutsy of Muir to write two books in a row about amnesiac characters, particularly when it may very well be the same character experiencing a different form of amnesia in each. This work initially reads like a strange interlude from the series, devoted to Nona’s odd but essentially quotidian routine in the midst of war, riot, and general chaos. But the story gradually gathers speed, and it’s all in service to a deeper plot. It is unfortunate that the demands of that plot mean we’ve gotten a considerably smaller dose of Gideon’s defiantly crude, riotously flouncy behavior in the two books subsequent to the one which bears her name.
A deceptively quiet beginning rockets to a thrilling finish, preparing us for the next volume’s undoubtedly explosive finale.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-25-085411-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tordotcom
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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