Another triumphant story of a woman finding love among the sexiest aliens in the romance galaxy.
A hybrid community of aliens and humans faces growing pains and outside threats.
When taken from Earth by aliens, Kira was singled out in a particularly painful manner—a translating device was forcibly implanted into her brain through her ear. After being abandoned on an ice planet by their original kidnappers, Kira and the other human women are rescued by aliens from the sa-khui tribe. Kira, who was always shy and timid on Earth, now has a demanding new role as translator. She captures the attention of Aehako, a charming and charismatic alien who calls her Sad Eyes. Kira was an orphan on Earth, and she fears she will never have a family on her new planet. A symbiotic implant called the khui senses when an alien and human are the best match for producing children, an urgent need since the sa-khui have less than 40 remaining members. A childhood illness has left Kira infertile, and she is afraid to tell Aehako, terrified that her inability to have children will prevent them from being true mates. One day she hears the voices of the kidnapper aliens in her earpiece and realizes that she and the other humans are in danger of being retaken. Fearing they will use her earpiece as a homing beacon, she confides in Aehako, and they travel to the elders’ cave, where they hope to find technology that can save them. The romance between Kira and Aehako is sweet and satisfying. Frustrated with the overcrowding, they become leaders of an effort to open a second settlement. But most rewarding is Kira’s realization that she has intrinsic value simply for being who she is and not because of an earpiece or an ability to bear children.
Another triumphant story of a woman finding love among the sexiest aliens in the romance galaxy.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-54896-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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