A genuine treat for SF fans: an epic multiverse tale that moves like a thriller.
A desperate scientist. A selfish rogue. A caring child. And the fate of infinite realities.
At the beginning of this multiverse-spanning tale, an unnamed narrator tells us we’re going to hear the stories of three individuals: first, Hadiz Tambuwal, an accidental genius; second, Essien Nkanika, an impoverished man willing to do anything to survive; and finally, Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills, a sentient rabbit whose choices changed the course of history. From that confident and intriguing opening, we jump right into Hadiz’s story. She’s a scientist working in a research station in Nigeria who can see the end of civilization coming and finds it terribly inconvenient that this collapse might interrupt her work. She’s looking for dark energy but instead stumbles on a way to hop into alternate universes. We soon learn that thousands of these alternate universes are governed by an empire called the Pandominion that invented cross-universe travel long ago and doesn’t care for people making unsanctioned trips. But with Hadiz’s Earth in the midst of civilizational collapse and environmental catastrophe, she’s left with no choice but to hop sideways to another Earth—and unknowingly set in motion a reality-altering chain of events. The result is sort of a space opera that never goes to space, instead spanning thousands of alternate Earths, including multiple Earths where evolution took a different path and the dominant sentient species is descended from rabbits, hedgehogs, or others of our mammalian cousins. The plot doesn’t map onto a traditional hero’s journey arc and feels all the fresher for it. Short, action-packed chapters keep the pace brisk, and each character we meet, however briefly, is vividly and empathetically drawn.
A genuine treat for SF fans: an epic multiverse tale that moves like a thriller.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780316504386
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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