Unlikely to rally crusaders in the fight against global warming but an intriguing tale for vampire enthusiasts.
Feuding legions of vampires look for a way to defeat mysterious, powerful beings that live in the forests in Yates’ supernatural thriller, the second in a proposed trilogy (Music of the Winds, 2012).
Centuries ago, a trio of fabled Vikings traveled with three “baby dragons,” which aren’t dragons at all but the original vampires. Their inevitable onslaught against the Vikings leads to wild rumors in Middle Europe about the existence of fanged flying creatures. Via their bites, the originals create four more powerful vampires: Rowan, Massimo, Kara, and Kara’s trusty henchman, Toes. The vamps form a rickety truce, one prone to occasional bouts of discord, but an alliance is solidified in a war against the “tree beings,” which have long since kept the blood suckers out of the forests. But it’s a war that the vampires are losing, and Rowan seeks help in the U.S., where the tree beings communicate with humans. This event, known as Music of the Winds, where some participants display an ability to levitate, is celebrated by some and written off as an elaborate hoax by others. Rowan, though, has another purpose for his American visitation. He’s hoping that his long-lost love, Mierka, may have been reborn. The novel is a thinly disguised story about the adverse effects of global warming. The tree creatures teach everyone about maintaining a healthy planet, as opposed to villainous billionaire industrialist F.F. Barry, who’s bent on worldwide domination. Reading the previous book in the series is necessary to grasp all of the plot points of the second. For example, Emily, a fascinating character with the unique ability to speak to the tree beings, doesn’t herself make an appearance in this installment, but other characters refer to her. Other enigmatic elements—e.g., a hidden utopian city referenced in Emily’s “special notebook”—offer a less confusing element of mystery. Many characters have their moments to shine, most notably Toes, who earned his name from his giant talons and who attacks his victims by spinning like a top and drilling into the flesh. Yates leaves quite a bit up in the air by the end, but he’s undoubtedly (and effectively) amping up readers for the next and reputedly final book.
Unlikely to rally crusaders in the fight against global warming but an intriguing tale for vampire enthusiasts.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1494413781
Page Count: 288
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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