A lively rumpus-room of mythology-tinged high-fantasy SF adventure.
Awaiting coronation as the long-lost, mighty king of the Milky Way, human youth Richard must dodge threats from deadly space enemies in Hickman’s sequel.
The title refers to a seemingly average teenager who carries the singular and irreproducible DNA of the spacegoing Plantagenet family, a humanoid alien dynasty who ruled and defended the many planets of the Milky Way galaxy more than 1,000 years ago. Back then, a usurper within the royal house murdered noble King Dolloff and his brethren before being assassinated himself. One survivor, the prince’s pregnant fiancee, found sanctuary on remote Earth—a “barbaric” place of dread and exile in galactic culture whose very existence is often doubted except as fearful folklore. Centuries later, in the present, Ohioan Richard is contacted by scattered supporters—including a resourceful and ever loyal Artificial Alien Life dubbed AAL, who enlightened the lad to his incredible bloodline. On the planet Krel, Richard was revealed as heir to the throne prematurely, and AAL had to place a duplicate with the lad’s oblivious family back in Ohio. The real Richard, in the galactic capital city before his coronation, must be a quick study in etiquette, diplomacy, policy, and virtual messiah-hood for billions of worshipful subjects. There are also enemies, such as the influential family of Sen. Spartacus, who want the youth killed to allow an elected democracy (in other words, Spartacus) to take control. Preparing novice Richard for his challenges includes granting superior abilities (such as teleportation) via accelerated evolution using the energy of a mystic black hole. However, these newfound superpowers are often beyond Richard’s control. Another unforeseen complication: the boy-king finding true love and passionate sex with Amber, a humanoid fox-creature from a planet called Beowulf, in a galactic culture that often marginalizes nonhuman creatures.
Hickman continues a multivolume saga that was launched with Richard: Distant Son (2022). Over the course of this novel, the author’s wide-ranging cosmology scrambles together elements of SF, high fantasy, and fairy tales; key alien species in the ensemble include such creatures as centaurs, satyrs, dragons, and winged horses. As noted above, readers should be prepared for xenosexual consensual relations as well as the fact that in addition to a healthy libido, Richard has an unusually active bladder for an SF adventurer; multiple scenes take place in his “privy” (a royal one, of course, that is guarded by a powerful AI). However, space-vulpine dating and mating tips and bathroom emergencies are only parts of the narrative, which never sits still. Amber’s single mother, Kit, happens to be a top reporter for the Galactic News Network, or GNN (not Fox News; the overall tone is not as satirical as that in a Terry Pratchett, Robert Asprin, or Jody Lynn Nye mock-epic). Assassination plots and lethal traps, grievous wounds, spaceship battles, heartache, tragedy, and miraculous resurrections comprise briskly paced episodes that alternate with scatological comedy, door-slamming farce, and demonstrations of Richard’s inherent kindness and nobility. The dialogue ranges from passably profound pronouncements to comic-book melodrama (“The beast let out an earth-shattering laugh. ‘Puny part-human, how dare you defy me’ ”).
A lively rumpus-room of mythology-tinged high-fantasy SF adventure.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985477726
Page Count: 366
Publisher: RedFoxOnHigh
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2023
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
A cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.
After purchasing a dilapidated, century-old starship called the Destitute, Torian Razner discovers that the moss covering it is, in fact, a deeply sarcastic sentient computer with abandonment issues.
Torian’s sister, Celise, is dying. Determined to save her life by getting her to a distant planet with air she can breathe, Torian ignores her former captain Amelia Perrosk’s warning that it’s an impossible task (along with any romantic feelings she might have for Amelia). Using the only ionite bars she has to her name, Torian purchases an ancient, moss-covered alien starship that appears to be on its last legs, so to speak. She hardly expected the moss to be a sentient computer or for it to hold a century-old grudge against its former alien captain. Moss quickly proves itself to be acerbic, intelligent, and rightly angry after being having been left behind for 100 years by its former captain. The two form a reluctant and surprising alliance, Torian proving to Moss that not all captains are “dog-turd fungus,” and they both gradually evolve into the best versions of themselves, human or otherwise. It’s obvious from the early pages that Thorne has crafted a story tailored to fans of Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series and Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. Falling somewhere between the two, this is a delightful mashup of romance, found family, and a touch of violence as Moss grapples with its feelings about its former captain and the unexpected kindness that Torian shows. Sweet without being overly saccharine, it’s a book for readers who want the adventure that comes with the vastness of outer space without its harsher realities.
A cleverly titled, cozy SF romance that marks Thorne as a writer to watch.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414144
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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