A fascinating, compulsively readable clash of hardware and ideals.
New stand-alone science fiction yarn from the author of such behemoths as The Naked God (2000), etc., whose shimmering skeins encompass colonial oppression, the military-industrial complex, alien empires, time travel, genetic manipulation, nanomachines, and what-all. Several centuries hence, with interstellar trade prohibitively expensive, Earth remains overpopulated and poverty-stricken. Predatory corporations like Zantiu-Braun have developed a policy of “asset realization,” sending starships full of troops to strip hapless colony worlds of everything they produce. Next on Zantiu-Braun’s hit list is planet Thallspring. This time, though, experienced trooper Lawrence Newton has private plans. On a previous visit to the planet, he stumbled upon a tantalizing and valuable secret, and now he's determined to grab it and escape his oppressive employers for good. At first he and his fellow troopers—they wear “Skins,” strength-amplifying muscle suits with built-in armor and powerful weaponry—easily dominate the locals, as Simon Roderick, Zantiu-Braun’s multiple-clone head of security, takes hostages to ensure their cooperation. But soon a more organized and effective opposition emerges, and the troopers face bloody street battles and civilian trickery. Storytelling schoolmarm Denise Ebourn and a handful of colleagues are the true resistance: they carry Primes, miniaturized Artificial Sentiences far more powerful than Zantiu-Braun’s, and possess other highly advanced mental and physical adaptations whose “nanonic” source derives from the mysterious “dragon.” Newton's goal is to learn Denise’s secrets. Roderick, as soon as he learns of the dragon, demands the secrets too, for different reasons. Denise has her own basis for denying them both. And, Denise wonders, how and why does Newton also carry a Prime?
A fascinating, compulsively readable clash of hardware and ideals.Pub Date: March 11, 2002
ISBN: 0-446-52708-4
Page Count: 640
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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
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