Fantasy for well-read adults.
First in de la Cruz’s debut adult series about the adventures of a family of Long Island witches.
The author, known for her Blue Bloods YA series featuring undead Manhattan debutantes, again does not have to stretch for likely settings—the Hamptons are the ideal home base for the Beauchamps, a mother and two daughters, longtime residents. Quite a longtime in fact—ever since Salem witch hunters hanged the two daughters, Ingrid and Freya, who were later reborn to their mother, Joanna. After Salem, witchly higher-ups restricted the open deployment of magical powers. The Beauchamps are so deep undercover that the community they inhabit, “North Hampton,” does not appear on any map. This Hampton is refreshingly devoid of rich people until two brothers, Bran and Killian, arrive to restore Fair Haven, their ancestral mansion. Freya, a bartender, recognizes an ancient soul mate in Bran, and they announce their engagement at a lavish Fair Haven party. Nevertheless, she can’t resist shagging preternaturally handsome Killian in the bathroom during the party. Public librarian Ingrid is chafing at the magic ban—with a simple incantation, she could easily cure a distraught co-worker’s infertility. Soon Ingrid is exchanging salutary spells for contributions to the library fund. When she’s not torn between two lovers, Freya lapses back into her own peculiar brand of magic—her aphrodisiac cocktails perform as advertised. Most daringly of all, Joanna raises a local artist from the dead. But once unleashed, the white magic provokes dark retribution: An undersea miasma is killing off fish and wild life, children are contracting a deadly influenza, vampires (vacationing Blue Bloods?) are infiltrating and the police are “liking” the witches for homicide. But this is secular 21st-century New York, not puritan colonial Massachusetts. Things have changed—haven’t they? A decidedly weird mishmash of mythologies, a serpentine plot and a thicket of back stories intertwine as de la Cruz sets up the continuing saga, but it all gels magnificently.
Fantasy for well-read adults.Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2390-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
Irredeemable in any world, real or virtual.
In this cyberpunk fiction debut, a massively popular online game has real-world consequences.
Ashley Akachi is a mixed-race woman who’s known as “Ashura the Terrible” to millions of fans of Infinite Game, which is watched around the world. In a near-future Florida that’s half drowned by rising sea levels, she sits inside a haptic chamber that converts her movements into gameplay in the ultraviolent competition. Former NFL player Kluwe (Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies, 2013) describes the game’s mechanics at length, at times giving the book the feel of watching someone else play a video game. (The game’s racist and misogynist online message boards also feature prominently.) Eventually, Ash uncovers a vast conspiracy involving not only Infinite Game, but also her love interest, Hamlin, who’s hiding a secret of his own. Unfortunately, there’s not enough space in this brief review to examine everything that’s obnoxious or distasteful in this novel, from its opening bullet-point infodump, lazily passed off as worldbuilding, to its eye-rolling last line. One may wonder if any women were involved in this book’s publication in any meaningful way. Only a male author could believe a woman thinks about “dicks” this often; when facing gender inequality, Ash huffs, “Must be nice to have a dick”; before castrating a would-be rapist, she scoffs, “You thought your dick made you a man? You’ll never be a man again.” Characters' attacks on Ash are all viciously gender-specific; in addition to being threatened with rape throughout, she's repeatedly called “slut,” “whore,” and “cunt.” Meanwhile, Ash herself reads like an unintentional parody of an empowered woman; she leers suggestively at a woman’s behind and then laments her small bust size, at length, before deciding “boobs are overrated.” At the book’s climax, Ash thinks that she’s “so tired of shitty men and their shitty dreams.” After reading this, readers will surely feel the same.
Irredeemable in any world, real or virtual.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20393-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A mixed bag of stories: some tired but several capable of poetically piercing the heart.
Science fiction author (The Wall of Storms, 2016) and translator (The Redemption of Time, Baoshu, 2019) Liu’s short stories explore the nature of identity, consciousness, and autonomy in hostile and chaotic worlds.
Liu deftly and compassionately draws connections between a genetically altered girl struggling to reconcile her human and alien sides and 20th-century Chinese young men who admire aspects of Western culture even as they confront its xenophobia (“Ghost Days”). A poor salvager on a distant planet learns to channel a revolutionary spirit through her alter ego of a rabbit (“Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard”). In “Byzantine Empathy,” a passionate hacktivist attempts to upend charitable giving through blockchain and VR technology even as her college roommate, an executive at a major nonprofit, fights to co-opt the process, a struggle which asks the question of whether pure empathy is possible—or even desired—in our complex geopolitical structure. Much of the collection is taken up by a series of overlapping and somewhat repetitive stories about the singularity, in which human minds are scanned and uploaded to servers, establishing an immortal existence in virtuality, a concept which many previous SF authors have already explored exhaustively. (Liu also never explains how an Earth that is rapidly becoming depleted of vital resources somehow manages to indefinitely power servers capable of supporting 300 billion digital lives.) However, one of those stories exhibits undoubted poignance in its depiction of a father who stubbornly clings to a flesh-and-blood existence for himself and his loved ones in the rotting remains of human society years after most people have uploaded themselves (“Staying Behind”). There is also some charm in the title tale, a fantasy stand-alone concerning a young woman snatched from her home and trained as a supernaturally powered assassin who retains a stubborn desire to seek her own path in life.
A mixed bag of stories: some tired but several capable of poetically piercing the heart.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982134-03-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
BOOK TO SCREEN
PERSPECTIVES
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