A veritable carnival of geeky sci-fi delights.
Kadish’s follow-up volume to Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet (2013) sends its heroes into the heart of the Regulus Empire.
After defeating the Deathlord Supreme Zarrod, 15-year-old Jack Finnegan and his heroic friends—professor Green, Scallywag the Red, Heckubus Moriarty, and Grohm the Rognok—have escaped the Ghost Planet. Traveling in the Ancients’ miraculous Earthship, they escort Princess Glorianna (formerly a student named Anna) back to the Regulus Empire and to the planet Omnicron Prime, where she will rule. The sprawling, technologically advanced world celebrates Jack as a hero, but Anna, whom he deeply loves, insists that her duties to the galactic realm preclude their future together. Eventually, Chief of Intelligence Phineas Alabaster learns of Jack’s devotion and asks him to cozy up to the Legacy families who are ruthlessly competing to marry into the throne: the Evenstars and the Skyborns. As Jack dates Kimlee Evenstar and befriends Mourdock Skyborn, he becomes entangled in Omnicron’s deadly politics and learns that the Deathlords’ reach is greater and more insidious than he previously imagined. After multiple assassination attempts throw things into chaos, Anna begins enforcing her rule with suspicious brutality. With Jack’s friends scattered across Omnicron and his Earthship held by the Maguffyn Corporation, who can help him expose the secret army manipulating the empire? Author Kadish uses his flair for humor, tightly threaded plots, and nerdy trivia to widen the scope of his YA space opera. Although the tone mostly revels in goofball wit, some self-aware cheekiness occasionally appears; for example, one character likens the previous Earthman Jack adventure to “a bad piece of fantasy fiction someone wrote to entertain simple-minded beings of questionable worthiness to society.” The cultural references, meanwhile, turn the novel into a Grand Central Station of sci-fi weirdness (including an apparent nod to 1980s TV character Max Headroom). Kadish’s cinema worship sometimes feels like a narrative crutch; for example, the same Ghostbusters gag opens and nearly closes the story. However, some of the characters temper the silliness with heart and intelligence. A cliffhanger ending provides an ideal place for readers of this kaleidoscopic saga to catch their breath.
A veritable carnival of geeky sci-fi delights.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 644
Publisher: Twelve Oaks Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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