A creative tale which makes its fantasy science fun.
In Johnson’s (Two Women Two Roads One Future, 2015, etc.) YA fantasy, an apprentice mage, searching for a possible cure to an epidemic, stumbles upon a nefarious plan at the atomic level.
It seems that a notoriously deadly purple plague has started to appear in Hadley Town. But the news is even worse for 14-year-old resident Jawan, the apprentice to the earth-mage Myrlo for the past eight years, as he learns that his parents’ house has been specifically quarantined. Determined to find a cure, he peruses his master’s research under a nanoscope and finds himself literally drawn in—that is, he mysteriously shrinks and winds up inside the cryptically labeled culture. It turns out that a fermion named Pym has summoned him to Nanosia, believing he’s the prophesied Big One from the Big World who’ll defeat Antipan, the ruler of the Realm of Chaos. Meanwhile, back in the larger world, fire-mage Elveston has a device that he claims will cure the plague. But he may have another scheme in mind involving the creation of pure energy with the help of his “accidental creation,” Gelic, a positron in Nanosia. The fact that positrons are unstable, though, could mean devastation for both worlds. To keep Nanosia from falling into disarray, Jawan may have to turn to something even more powerful and dangerous. The educational value of Johnson’s story is hard to miss: numerous characters are subatomic particles, which will pique the interest of younger readers who may be unfamiliar with bosons or gamma rays. But the author also stays true to the fantasy genre with her plot complications and characterizations: Jawan finds that getting back to the Big World is far from a simple task, and the villain Elveston is shown to be cruel to his journeyman (Jawan’s pal Loby) and distrusted by other elemental mages. The breezy prose is often humorous, especially when describing Jawan’s conspicuousness—he doesn’t spin or orbit like other Nanosians. There are also a few surprises, including the reason why Jawan feels that some of the subatomic folks that he meets (including the titular Queen Quanta) look familiar. Unfortunately, not everything gets resolved by the end—although this may indicate a potential sequel.
A creative tale which makes its fantasy science fun.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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