An epic and hopeful finale to an altogether splendid tale.
Carey concludes his post-apocalyptic Rampart trilogy, set in a future England ravaged by climate change and war.
Koli Faceless and his companions—healer Ursala-from-Elsewhere; Cup; and the snarky, self-aware AI Monono Aware—have finally found the Sword of Albion. They’ve been following the signal across the ocean in a leaky boat, and when they find its source, they discover that the Sword isn’t an actual sword at all. It’s a massive warship chock full of old tech, more than Koli has ever seen in one place. It’s inhabited by only three people: Lorraine and Paul Banner and their son, Stanley. Lorraine and Paul are keenly interested in Ursala’s vital medical diagnostic unit. But something is off about the trio, and Koli and his friends are under constant watch, making them feel more like prisoners than guests. Turns out there really is something to the stories of a boogeyman called Stannabanna, “the lord of all shunned men and monsters,” and nothing on the ship is quite what it seems. Folksy, lyrical storytelling and heartbreakingly complex characters have been a trademark of this rich trilogy. In off-kilter English (England is “Ingland,” diagnostic is “dagnostic,” etc.), Koli shares a narrative with Monono and with his childhood friend Spinner as she takes on a powerful new role and a fearsome enemy back in Koli’s home village of Mythen Rood. Themes of loyalty, friendship, compassion, and inclusion are tightly woven into an inventive and exciting whole, and there are strong echoes of the current state of the world, notably the dangers of building walls between people. Luckily, in Koli’s world at least, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, even if it’s just a pinprick.
An epic and hopeful finale to an altogether splendid tale.Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-45872-6
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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 fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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