Does the world blow up? Only the most doggedly persistent of readers will care to find out.
In space, no one can hear you scream—especially if the satellites grow cold.
Former naval officer, NSC advisor and war-gamer Coumatos teams up with writers Scott and Birnes to tender a cheerless tale of the near future in which the bad guys finally figure out what makes America tick—namely, anything high-tech. Arthur Clarke’s 2010 it ain’t; as today, it’s the old Hobbesian world of each against all, with a vigorous Taliban and al-Qaeda out there making things miserable in the imperium and a constantly resurgent Iran complicating matters—to say nothing of China, North Korea and a few other assorted states not yet convinced of essential American decency. The war-gaming scenario is this: What would happen if some rogue state or enemy organization decided to go up against the US on the technology front, starting by shooting down or otherwise silencing a satellite? If the US military had no GPS systems or satellite-guided missiles, what of its power? “Few of the world’s intellectuals, statesmen, and military leaders understand the subtle implications of a few satellites simply going silent in the cold blackness of space,” the authors aver. It’s the last subtle statement in the book, which goes on to square off square-jawed ace pilot heroes of the corn-fed variety against be-turbaned baddies who hate freedom—and, presumably, iPods and suchlike. Heavy-handed and portentous (“The room’s skepticism was palpable, hanging in the air like steam”), the narrative develops like a Mickey Spillane whodunit that had somehow landed a doomsday bomb, though with little of Spillane’s grace and class. Part Tom Clancy techno-geekery, part locker-room patriotic pep talk, part western oater in mullah’s clothing, the book grinds its way across the Asian sands and, yes, the cold blackness of space, in agonizing detail best suited to a Popular Mechanics article.
Does the world blow up? Only the most doggedly persistent of readers will care to find out.Pub Date: April 17, 2007
ISBN: 0-765-31379-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
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
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
