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
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.
The conclusion to the Villains trilogy asks, In a world where there are no heroes, what does victory really mean?
Schwab’s world is one where violent near-death experiences can engender ExtraOrdinaries, people who come back to life with a new superpowered ability, but lacking empathy, patience, and a variety of other, gentler qualities. In this installment, Victor Vale is becoming increasingly desperate; ever since Sydney Clarke used her power to bring him back from the dead, control over his own ability to cause and dampen pain has been slipping. Sydney herself is chafing against her life on the run with Victor’s protective ex-cellmate, Mitch Turner, and struggling with missing both Victor and her dead sister, Serena, whom she might not be able to resurrect—and definitely shouldn’t. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Gray, discovers the existence of ExtraOrdinary people and seeks to harness their power for himself with tragic consequences for himself and many other people. Because the narrative skips around in time, it becomes clear fairly early that a final conflict is looming at EON, a high-tech facility where ExtraOrdinaries are imprisoned and experimented upon. This series has really lived up to its title; while antiheroes and villains have been popular protagonists for quite some time, not every writer is willing to lean into the darkness as hard as Schwab does. Some of her characters were psychopaths even before their near-death traumas, which means they didn’t have much moral fiber to begin with. And even the people who are basically good do a lot of bad and often foolish things when faced with a crisis…and there are a lot of crises. The strength of this series lies in Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary power to make you care for many of these incredibly rash, ethically dubious—some verging on irredeemable—characters anyway. As a result, the story rises above the usual grimdark cynical slog; instead, this is a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781250192233
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
