A whimsical, spirited jaunt with an intrepid supernatural investigator.
Hicklin presents a collection of linked magical adventure stories starring a bowler-hat-wearing hero.
Israel St. James, the narrator and protagonist of these tales, was born in New York City in 1840. At the age of 18, he journeys to England to study archeology at Cambridge. A university expedition to Baghdad in 1863 ends up changing his life forever; there, he and others from the university find the Apothecary of Archimedes, a “kind of vault,” as St. James’ professor puts it, that contains invaluable items from the ancient world. After the group opens the Apothecary, it becomes apparent that it contains not just immense knowledge, but magical items, as well. One important find is the healing Rod of Asclepius, which can heal any wound—even one that might otherwise be fatal. It’s just the beginning of St. James’ ongoing journey to seek similar artifacts throughout the world. He earns his doctorate from Cambridge and becomes the institution’s “curator of the Abnormal Relics Collection.” Although he eventually leaves the university, the next several decades see him tackling adventures in which he encounters famous real-life figures, such as Nikola Tesla. At another point, St. James finds a sextant from the ill-fated ship Mary Celeste that gives its user the power to see ghosts and living people’s auras. Hicklin organizes St. James’ escapades in straightforward, chronological chapters, with occasional grayscale images from illustrator Belden featuring tableaux such as St. James dancing in the moonlight. Readers accompany him to many a legendary place; he’s never idle long, but he appealingly has time for some humor, as when, in Chicago, he releases cattle to slow a pursuer, reflecting on how cows are “immune to Authority.” Not every tale has an equal amount of zing, but each its share of intrigue as St. James attempts to slake his unending thirst for adventure.
A whimsical, spirited jaunt with an intrepid supernatural investigator.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2019
ISBN: 9780615836072
Page Count: 510
Publisher: Sic Semper Serpent
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.
When a bunch of corporate assholes mark their planet for destruction, a garage band of colonists must defend their home world with the power of rock.
Slightly sidestepping his frenetic litRPG—literary role-playing game—doorstoppers, here Dinniman takes on capitalism, propaganda, xenophobia, and violence as entertainment. Thankfully for readers, it’s all wrapped in the usual profane, adolescent humor, and SF readers will have a ball. A couple of hundred years after they left Earth, the inhabitants of the interstellar colony of New Sonora weren’t expecting much in the way of new threats, especially after a mysterious illness killed almost everyone between the ages of 30 and 60. That disaster left only the young and the old on the populated planet, where farming is enabled by highly accelerated AI and people are generally cool with each other. But when drummer Oliver Lewis stumbles across a foul-mouthed killer mech piloted by a child, he realizes that something’s definitely fishy. Earth, it seems, has classified the New Sonorans as non-human and scheduled their destruction as a paid, five-day combat game. Apex Industries, led by lead mercenary Eli Opel, has reverse-engineered Ender’s Game and is turning loose its players with real bullets and bombs on the population of New Sonora. The resistance is a weird bunch, led by proto-slacker Oliver; his little sister, Lulu; and his ex-girlfriend, documentary filmmaker and burgeoning revolutionary Rosita Zapatero, as well as the other members of Oliver’s band, the Rhythm Mafia. Thankfully, they also have Roger, the last functioning AI on the planet, though Oliver’s grandfather permanently programmed it to nannybot mode as a dying joke. Call the book overlong—the battle scenes often feel like watching someone play a videogame—but the humor and the execution are cutting without being mean and there’s almost always a point.
A disarmingly heartfelt space adventure that dares to suggest genocide might be a bad business.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9780593820308
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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