Banished by his superpowered kin, a resourceful young man aims to transcend space and time to save at least three civilizations in Reiter’s debut novel.
Long ago, the gray-and-blue-skinned Malgovi race, fighting a losing interstellar battle with the savage BroSohnti, suddenly developed the “iro-form”—the astounding ability to manipulate energy and light, giving rise to talents ranging from telepathy to death rays. Malgovi gifted with iro defeated the BroSohnti but consequently became a cruel, arrogant upper class in their own society. Dungias, born into Malgovi nobility, has no iro-form but compensates with sharp wits, Iron Man–type technology and martial arts athleticism. However, he’s still a despised, bullied outcast, even after his strategies help his ungrateful, iro-gifted younger brother win a major iro competition. Banished for his daring, Dungias is taken in by Nugar, one of the Vinthur, a mystic people once closely allied to the Malgovi. Nugar believes that Dungias is the foretold “Star Chaser” who could restore honor, justice and harmony to the various sundered races. Barely keeping ahead of iro-equipped assassins sent by corrupt Malgovi and offended Vinthur, Dungias sweats out the Yoda-like Nugar’s deadly lessons in space-Zen, until he becomes a “Traveler” who can commune with godlike, transdimensional beings. As if this vast, intrigue-ridden universe were not enough, Reiter skillfully embeds a parallel, more opaque plotline about a timeless spirit of malice called Baron Nomed who’s reborn into the human race. He renews his rivalry with a blind immortal named Freund who isn’t above taking a few million lives as collateral damage. The two storylines merge near the denouement—one resolved, the other maddeningly sans closure, promising a hefty continuation of this formidable epic. Usually, when a writer weighs a sci-fi manuscript down with imaginary alien jargon, it can be smegging annoying. But Reiter’s long, sprawling, ambitious construct makes the steep learning curve worth the trouble. Baron Nomed’s name (“demon” backward) is the only groaner in a novel that’s otherwise rich in clever wordplay and verbal invention. (The chapter headings even quote a wide range of beings, from fictional alien sages to Sun Tzu to Tupac Shakur.) Overall, readers will find this an impressively convoluted, dimension-hopping, mixed martial arts mind-stretcher.
A venturesome sci-fi/fantasy novel for readers who really want their action set where no man has gone before.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 609
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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