A new take on life, love and war among extraterrestrial colonists that successfully clears the launch pad.
In the second volume of Joseph’s (Colony Earth, 2012 ) fantasy saga, humanlike aliens try to adapt to settled life and interspecies marriage in Britain during the Iron Age, inciting conflict with each other as well as rival fiefdoms.
Derived more cleverly than one might expect from the “ancient astronauts” theories advanced by supermarket tabloids and such dubious scholars as Zecharia Sitchin and Erich Von Daniken, the Alterrans, a Nordic alien race, have technology bordering on magic; in fact, a quantum-physics spin on astrology is a legit science for them. After they establish a colony on Earth during the Iron Age, simultaneous catastrophes hit both worlds—perhaps astrological destiny. A comet strikes Earth and solar flares hit Alterra, indefinitely stranding the overwhelmingly male alien settlers in Albion (prehistoric Britain), with their energy sources, weapons and powers of rejuvenation waning. The best options for long-term survival are now intermarriage with humans and guiding the development of earthly civilization—an interaction that violates Alterran law. In this installment, set in and around the breakaway city of Khamlok, Alterra’s genetically predestined leader, Lil, witnesses the first generation of human-Alterran births, including his own children with his formidable bride, Alana, a survivor of Atlantis. Despite their lack of high-tech luxuries, the extraterrestrial colonists’ unaccustomed freedom from rigid Alterran society starts Lil’s men thinking for themselves, sewing seeds of internal dissent. Meanwhile, rival human fiefdoms (including a dark wizard) also struggle in the disaster’s wake, and they scheme against the “starmen” they envy and mistrust. The talky plot proceeds at a rather low boil until a pulse-quickening final act radically rocks Lil’s new world and sets invested readers on a countdown to the third volume. Fans of Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argo: Archives series might find this to be an interesting riff. While the large ensemble cast borders on being unwieldy, Joseph slyly references ancient mythology and archaeology of the Celts, Greeks, Sumerians and Egyptians, which never comes across as too heavy-handed or obvious.
A new take on life, love and war among extraterrestrial colonists that successfully clears the launch pad.Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479377473
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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