by Paul J.C. Edge ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
This opening salvo of a new SF series alternates between intriguing and overwhelming.
An ordinary man finds himself a key combatant in a longtime battle between godlike beings in Edge’s SF novel.
Investigative journalist/hacker Kevin Touns stumbles across a shadowy group of powerful men known as the Pandekon and set on global domination. His friend and associate Hamster discovers that the Pandekon’s members are followers of an alien set on purging humanity from the planet. Kevin, his friend Griff, and Hamster become wanted men after they destroy a Pandekon facility in Paris. Kevin and Griff are captured by the Bereft, a group that protects the Terminus, a mysterious gateway through which souls pass to reach their next destination. Kevin is introduced to Mut, a “Mother of the Earth,” whose role is to protect humanity. Kevin is told that he’s actually Mut’s runaway son, Torch, and that his mission is to find a replacement body for the soul of his dying mother. Kevin now has to contend with crises caused by human zombies created by a bioengineered fungus, intergalactic vampires, and invading alien slavers. There is a lot to unpack in this first installment of the author’s Book of Xaal series. Like Kevin, the reader is constantly blindsided by confusing developments, which makes for a frustrating reading experience. Edge introduces far too many characters, settings, and events without sufficient context, making the narrative difficult to parse. The strength of Edge’s novel is its cast. Kevin/Torch is a man of mystery (“No one uses my formal name for reasons of anonymity, my friendships are mostly online rather than face to face these days. I am part of a small clandestine group…”) whose complicated history is skillfully doled out by the author. Griff and Hamster, his steady and colorful companions, are also well developed. Here’s hoping that all the setup Edge has crammed into this first volume will pay dividends in future entries.
This opening salvo of a new SF series alternates between intriguing and overwhelming.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9798376513132
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Margaret Atwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
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New York Times Bestseller
Booker Prize Winner
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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