An inventive mix of SF and fact that should engross a wide range of readers.
This debut work combines an introduction to genetics with an SF adventure.
A supernova within the Milky Way exposed the Earth to tremendous amounts of gamma radiation. This “Stella Ignis” event stripped the ozone layer and caused mass extinctions. Some people went underground for protection, taking plants and animals along, and so “human society and knowledge had been preserved, albeit under severely constrained environmental conditions.” The ensuing centuries give rise to Homo transformans, whose genetic mutations allow them to shape-shift into various animals, including dragons. Two groups would like nothing more than to capture and exploit these individuals—the Biogenetics Company and the Cassius Foundation, which is led by Angus Cassius. To protect against these aggressors and the bounty hunters who would earn kidnapping fees, two forward-thinking Homo transformans named Edvar and Ruth H’Aleth create a refuge. Initially, the House of H’Aleth declines to conduct experiments using its citizens. But eventually, the goals of maintaining genetic knowledge and defending against the world’s evils bring philosophical offshoots into being. In a safe region, the House of Erwina conducts selective breeding and schools children. Farthest away is the House of Gregor, which practices genetic engineering. Can the houses remain intact across the generations against greedy individuals? Ames’ hybrid of science education and adventure provides anyone newly interested in genetics with an excellent foundation. Key vocabulary is defined in the text, like chromosome (“an extended strand of DNA that was…compressed into a microscopic package”), and always accompanied by uncredited explanatory illustrations. The plot goes on to detail how evolution works through trial and error—most early Homo transformans didn’t shape-shift expertly or completely and so died—and “patterns of inheritance”; Edvar and Ruth’s children possess combined and expanded traits. Throughout, black-and-white artwork showcases fantastic scenes or anomalies, as when the arrogant Rafe Cassius fails to transform fully and becomes a grotesque. The author’s imaginative tale follows H’Aleth descendants who work to merge Homo sapiens and Homo transformans into one society despite the Cassius family's machinations. The first two sections strike the best balance between science and adventure while later ones rely more on character development and worldbuilding.
An inventive mix of SF and fact that should engross a wide range of readers. (maps, tables, appendices, glossary, reference guide, index)Pub Date: March 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5434-8012-2
Page Count: 586
Publisher: XlibrisUS
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 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
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
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