Enthralling storylines and heady action scenes propel a spirited space adventure.
In this third installment of an SF series, interstellar mercenaries face countless dangers trying to restore a comrade’s amazing powers.
Shirakaya has long searched for a way to regain the magic she once wielded as a sorcerer. She’s an excommunicated captain from a religious military government who is traversing the 12 dimensions of the universe Ensar with her band of mercenaries. The Shadow Mercs are a ragtag crew, including humyns, aliens, and mutants (Yarasuro sports vertically slit eyes), that takes on risky missions for money. For example, the warriors immerse themselves in a potentially lethal game of politics in one galaxy and investigate demon possession among royalty in another. Shirakaya, meanwhile, pieces together what she needs to get her powers back. There’s the artifact her archaeologist brother has snatched as well as an enigmatic scientist whose compendium on the 12 dimensions supposedly originated from an alternate universe. She needs her magic if she wants any hope of vanquishing the koth’vurians, potent aliens who threaten all of Ensar. As this precarious quest continues, the Shadow Mercs both gain and lose members while an old, formidable enemy plots a devastating assault against the group. Centeno’s latest volume moves at a steady clip as several bracing subplots mingle with the series arc (defeating the koth’vurians). Shadow Merc Dojin chases intergalactic bank robbers in his downtime, and fellow crew member/oracle Myris deals with her complicated past resurfacing. Effective action sequences often accompany these threads, highlighted by explosions, plasma weapons, and bloody deaths, even among the good guys. Although Centeno takes the battles and character development seriously, he imbues the novel with humor. This primarily comes through contemporary dialogue that modern-day earthlings might utter: Myris insists that some people “take a chill pill,” and the prospect of an “eternal wellspring for the soul” certainly “sounds dope” to Dojin. A worthy cliffhanger promises a fourth installment.
Enthralling storylines and heady action scenes propel a spirited space adventure. (dedication; maps; glossary; about the author)Pub Date: May 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-09-559440-7
Page Count: 319
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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