An inventive and action-packed, if sometimes uneven, SF finale.
This third installment of an SF trilogy focuses on a war between aliens and humans.
Raised as humans, four brothers—Joe, Franc, Paul, and Bart—received the shocking news that they were clones of an alien race and that this species was bent on humanity’s destruction. Called the Dark Ones, they are truly something to be feared. But it seems not all of them are evil. The brothers’ own father helped set up seven safe havens on Earth, though the siblings didn’t believe that all of the refuges would survive. Now, to everyone’s surprise and suspicion, a group appears in Sicily claiming to be from Denmark, one of the havens thought lost in a great battle. Joe is already wary of the band, but then he notices that one of the travelers bears a sign that he is a Dark One. It is Typhon, son of the Dark Ones’ leader and the very alien who was rumored to have destroyed the Denmark refuge. Typhon claims to have seen the error of his ways during the battle and turned against his own people to defend the haven: “It may be hard to believe, but I would fight to the death to protect you and your beliefs.” Joe cannot be sure that Typhon has turned over a new leaf, but bigger clashes are coming, and the entire planet is at stake. Humans will eventually need to prepare for a full-scale invasion. As this volume is the finale of Edge’s trilogy, it is highly recommended that readers peruse the first two novels to fully grasp the intriguing saga. The author does his best to catch readers up in the installment’s beginning, but the infodump will be overwhelming and exhausting for those unfamiliar with the series. This confusion is made worse by the fact that several characters are often talking in the same paragraph in the story. Readers may be baffled as to who is speaking, especially if they are not well acquainted with the large cast. Still, SF fans willing to put in the effort will be rewarded with innovative worldbuilding and an epic, high-stakes battle that delivers plenty of action and thrills. This is a gripping, wide-ranging tale that involves journal excerpts, faith, healing, monks, cloned wolves, uneasy alliances, and various aliens, weapons, and spaceships.
An inventive and action-packed, if sometimes uneven, SF finale.Pub Date: March 28, 2022
ISBN: 979-8421346050
Page Count: 493
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 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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