A savory treat for sci-fi/fantasy readers.
From the author of The Vagrant Chronicle (2012) comes a post-apocalyptic Western in which a tortured hero struggles to separate illusion from reality.
Thousands of years in the future, the Earth has been scorched by a hyperactive sun. Australia remains the only habitable continent, where a frontier-style civilization prevails. In the town of Desonas, Flint Cross lives with his wife, Amanda, and their two children. Flint’s harsh existence is made worse by Amanda’s confrontational attitude and the dreams about a woman named Hamarah that plague him. The town marshal asks Flint to hunt down a former ally named Browder, claiming that he’s murdered some aboriginal Australians. But when our hero catches up with Browder, the man warns Flint that life in Desonas is an illusion. To break the spell, he must stop eating the fruit called “bush tucker.” To cope with this startling revelation, Flint enlists the Aborigine Yeramba to guide him through the psychic realm of the dreamtime. There, Flint encounters not just Hamarah, but also a hidden aspect of himself. They offer information about the man Flint once was—a warrior named Ethan—who’s being punished by living in the elaborate lie that is Desonas. Should Flint escape his prison, leaving behind the children he loves? Experienced fantasist Centeno triumphantly celebrates the many pulpy facets of the genre. His broody narrative is ripe with nasty creatures (the lurken), pale kings (the evil Pardashan) and psychological hellscapes. An agile prose conveys it all fantastically: “The creature’s head exploded; then its body burst into a glob of slime that enveloped Flint.” Centeno’s dialogue is just as rich, and our introduction to Pardashan is exceptional; he tells our hero, “[Y]ou will remember my name until you scream and croak as a spit of meat on my dinner table!” A few slow moments occur when Flint explores his psychic trauma; he questions reality so often it starts to feel repetitive. Beyond that, Centeno offers an inventive, emotionally resonant adventure.
A savory treat for sci-fi/fantasy readers.Pub Date: June 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1497470880
Page Count: 284
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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