Superlative characters fuel this swiftly paced futuristic tale.
Mercenaries embark on a series of missions and misadventures while pursuing a heinous alien species in this SF sequel.
Shirakaya was once a captain of the Order, a religious military faction on the planet Pravura. Now, she’s a freelancer for guilds, tackling such missions as investigating unexplained deaths at a nursing home and rescuing a trancepunk rock star from a cult. She slowly forms a team ultimately called Shadow Mercs, starting with the military crew of a spacecraft she once commanded. While the mercenaries complete missions that Shirakaya’s contact continues to assign, they also earn money in other ways. Two Mercs become tag-team champs in an underground arena while Shirakaya’s team tries joining a competition show to win a brand-new interstellar starship. But their most important goal is stopping Ashkaratoth, who leads koth’vurians in terrorist attacks on Pravura. Most don’t believe that these aliens, exiled eons ago, have even returned. Shirakaya further enhances the Mercs with surprising recruits; she hopes to align with a powerful wraith and embraces a soldier who’s gradually mutating from an alien bite. The team may prove a formidable adversary to Ashkaratoth, especially if Shirakaya can get back the magic she’s lost. Centeno’s second installment, like the first, is a collection of subplots. Each chapter focuses on and often resolves an intriguing story; as one character aptly puts it, “One mission at a time, please.” Still, there’s definite cohesion, particularly with the Mercs’ persistent alien enemy, who, like numerous characters, appeared in the preceding novel. The vibrant cast includes Shirakaya; cynical soldier Dojin; and pilot Narja, who pushes the hardest for the starship grand prize. Sadly, not everyone in this appealing bunch makes it to the end. Meanwhile, brisk action ignites the pages with enchanted swords, plasma guns, and tentacled creatures, though it’s apparent that Centeno is setting the stage for more books to follow.
Superlative characters fuel this swiftly paced futuristic tale. (dedication, maps, glossary, author bio)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-227722-8
Page Count: 321
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.
The first installment of Liu’s Julia Z saga is an SF thriller set in a near-future “post-truth age” where the use of AI and the inundation of digital disinformation and data pollution have blurred the lines between delusion and reality.
Julia—whose immigrant mother, a divisive political activist, was murdered during a border protest—has lived on her own since she was 14. A brilliant hacker now 23, she’s been trying to live in online anonymity, acutely aware of the multitude of ways she can be identified and tracked. Living in a Boston suburb and struggling to make ends meet, she inadvertently becomes entangled with a lawyer named Piers Neri and his search for his artist wife, Elli Krantz—famous for her experimental work in vivid dreaming—who may or may not have been kidnapped. A prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance, Piers goes on the run with the help of Julia—and together, they begin putting together pieces of a mind-bogglingly intricate puzzle that links Elli to a powerful criminal with a global reach. As Julia digs deeper into the appeal of vivid dreaming and the criminal’s ruthless endeavors, she discovers the sham that is the American Dream: “America was corrupt and steeped in sin. The powerful had rigged the game for themselves and turned the country into a panopticon to imprison the rest of us. Anytime one of the powerless—it didn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you spoke, the place you were born in—was on the verge of climbing out, they would be ruthlessly tossed back into the pit.” And amid the backdrop of dealing with unresolved childhood trauma and the need to find her place in the world, she finds something unexpected—herself.
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781668083178
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.
Having survived a disastrous deep space mission in 2038, three asteroid miners plan a return to their abandoned ship to save two colleagues who were left behind.
Though bankrolled through a crooked money laundering scheme, their original project promised to put in place a program to reduce the CO2 levels on Earth, ease global warming, and pave the way for the future. The rescue mission, itself unsanctioned, doesn't have a much better chance of succeeding. All manner of technical mishaps, unplanned-for dangers, and cutthroat competition for the precious resources from the asteroid await the three miners. One of them has cancer. The international community opposes the mission, with China, Russia, and the United States sending questionable "observers" to the new space station that gets built north of the moon for the expedition. And then there is Space Titan Jack Macy, a rogue billionaire threatening to grab the riches. (As one character says, "It's a free universe.") Suarez's basic story is a good one, with tense moments, cool robot surrogates, and virtual reality visions. But too much of the novel consists of long, sometimes bloated stretches of technical description, discussions of newfangled financing for "off-world" projects, and at least one unneeded backstory. So little actually happens that fixing the station's faulty plumbing becomes a significant plot point. For those who want to know everything about "silicon photovoltaics" and "orthostatic intolerance," Suarez's latest SF saga will be right up their alley. But for those itching for less talk and more action, the book's many pages of setup become wearing.
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18363-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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