An often enjoyable, if unpolished, story that could use an acknowledgment that not everyone celebrates Christmas.
In this sci-fi novel, aliens plan to invade our planet, and it’s up to a plucky, teenage orphanage employee and her allies to stop them.
The story’s protagonist was anonymously left at a Detroit-area orphanage as a baby. Now 19, the girl, known as Pix, is a resident staffer at the same orphanage. She does whatever needs to be done, such as raising funds for the orphans to have a big Christmas tree, lights, and presents. When the kids gather to decorate their donated tree, a very real-looking Santa Claus (spelled throughout as “Clause”) shows up with presents for all. Curious, Pix follows him when he leaves and discovers startling truths: his name is Nick Salisbury, he’s her biological father, and he and her mother, Sabrina, nicknamed “Brin,” are agents working for the Admin, an organization of benevolent aliens. Nick and Brin were recruited following an attack by the Vellim—evil, insectlike beings that they thought had killed Pix as a baby. Meanwhile, the orphanage is under threat from Ralph Normandy, a real estate bigwig who wants to acquire its land by hook or by crook. Also in the mix is Guy, a personable young man that Pix runs into on the street, who has secrets of his own. With the help of alien technology, her newfound parents, and some good-hearted folks, Pix aims to foil a new Vellim invasion while giving the orphans the best Christmas ever. Corbin (The Odin Chronicle, 2013) offers an upbeat holiday story packed with grateful kids, kindly adults, sneering villains, over-the-top light displays, and nifty alien gizmos. The plot satisfyingly combines scenes of action, miraculous help, and burgeoning romances among several characters. But although the novel often displays humanistic values, it has a culturally myopic view of Christmas, with the orphanage staff even claiming that “we don’t promote any particular kind of religious activity for the kids.”
An often enjoyable, if unpolished, story that could use an acknowledgment that not everyone celebrates Christmas.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5331-3241-3
Page Count: 374
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2017
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
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
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