For readers who want cinematic action and excitement without the fuss of character development
A teen with a year to live is recruited into an elite team of dying 19-year-old spies.
Cam Cody is a soccer star finishing up his senior year of high school when he’s diagnosed with a rare kind of brain tumor by a secretive traveling doctor. Though he feels perfectly healthy, his despair is overwhelming. When a mysterious man offers him a job as a one-year spy kid, the choice seems obvious: Let the creepy spies fake his premature death and spirit him off to the opportunity of, well, a lifetime. On a beach surrounded by cliffs and jungle, Cam meets the nine other members of his team, all as distinctive as if they were the cast of a miniseries. There’s the genius, the musician, the big lunkhead and “the hot gal” (also known as “Obviously female,” “a goddamned beer commercial. James Bond with boobs,” and “definitely not repressed”). All Cam’s teammates take the drug TS-9, which enhances their speed, strength and smarts, but Cam’s been assured he doesn’t need the drug yet. The team’s spy training is brutal, but their missions are rewarding, such as rescuing kidnapped humanitarian-aid doctors from pirates. They are humanitarian-aid doctors, right? Team members keep getting killed—sometimes under very suspicious circumstances—but they all have only a year to live, after all. Solving the mystery with only the most heavily foreshadowed characters left alive leads to a shoehorned lead-in for the next volume.
For readers who want cinematic action and excitement without the fuss of character development . (Action. 13-15)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01155-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
Overall, the blurred magic/technology boundary gives a compelling flavor to an adventure well worth reading.
A ghost dragon sends Kai and his spirit pig on a quest to rescue the princess of a cyberpunk China-analogue.
Kai’s grown apart from his friends since the adventure that brought him money and the friendship of Princess Lian. At least he still sees his best friend Yún daily during their shared apprenticeship, but he can't talk to her without arguing. Now the king of Lóng City is gravely ill, the magic flux powering the city's talk-phones and electronics is failing and Kai's mother is missing. His unwilling quest to save the day takes Kai across the Seventy Kingdoms all the way to the mysterious Phoenix Empire. It's a good thing Yún joins him, because Kai simply isn't clever enough to deal with all the bureaucracy the journey entails, from taxes to passports. They travel by foot, pony and luxurious train to find Princess Lian, who can surely help them. As an adventurer, Kai is on the passive side and tends to let the world happen to him, but this is a minor quibble. He also frequently refers to the adventure that brought him together with his now-estranged friends, but since those events were from a short story ("Pig, Crane, Fox: Three Hearts Unfolding" from the fantasy anthology Magic in the Mirrorstone, edited by Steve Berman, 2008), readers are more likely to be frustrated then familiar.
Overall, the blurred magic/technology boundary gives a compelling flavor to an adventure well worth reading. (Fantasy/cyberpunk. 13-15)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01278-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
An attempted twist on The Hunger Games
If the world is full of vampires, how do the humans survive?
Gene's a heper: one of the disgusting endangered species that sweats, can't see in the dark and don't have fangs. He's lived this long by disguising himself as a real person, never smiling or laughing or napping where he can be seen; gobbling bloody raw meat with his classmates; showing a stoic, expressionless face at all times. Appearing emotionless is trickier than usual when the nation announces a Heper Hunt. Every citizen of the nation will be entered into a lottery, and a lucky few will be selected to hunt the last remaining hepers to the death. When Gene is selected (of course Gene is selected), he's terrified: Training with the other lottery winners at the Heper Institute, he'll have no opportunity to scrub off the sweat, body hair, plaque and other evidence of his vile human nature. If the vampires realize there is a human among them, he'll be torn to pieces before he can blink. Luckily, Gene seems to have an unlikely ally at the Institute: Ashley June, a classmate of his who has secrets of her own. While the worldbuilding is thin and frequently nonsensical, this grotesque and bloody construction of a vampire world will appeal to readers who've been craving gore over romance with their vampires. Perhaps the sequel will bring the illogical parts together.
An attempted twist on The Hunger Games . (Paranormal adventure. 13-15)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-00514-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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