An entertaining retrospective that explores a smart and innovative alien civilization.
In this illustrated SF book, a writer revisits the alien world that he imagined and built throughout his childhood.
Baker first conceived of the Imps when he was only 3 years old. These intriguing aliens, who reach all of 1 foot as adults, somewhat resemble beans, with noses almost as long as their spindly legs. They live inside a climate-controlled cavern in “Imp World”—one of the 25 moons of the planet Obor in the Milky Way galaxy. In this volume, the author looks back at different “editions” of his Imp writings, dating from when he was a child in the 1960s through his early 20s. He compiles old, sketched diagrams of spaceships and Imp World as well as typewritten specifics on the aliens’ biology, ecology, government, and transportation system. Much of the material is gleefully inventive; all Imps are born female, and those whose eggs are fertilized eventually turn male. They are various colors, although “Color Changing Tanks” allow an Imp to choose a different one. The author’s drawings are wonderfully and meticulously detailed, from the Imps’ anatomy to the layout of the Surface Center, which rests between a subterranean city and Imp World’s surface. But in other instances, this world mirrors familiar sights on Earth. Additional creatures on Imp World, for example, include the electric snake, the striped bird, and tyris, which are fish. Imps get around in floating trucks and buses and even simple boats and submarines. Baker cohesively ties together all of the alien facts and diagrams and earnestly discusses his decadeslong creation. But his retrospection comes with a bit of welcome humor, as when he notes the parts he “never got around to doing,” and some clear sources of inspiration (for instance, maglev trains and the author’s fascination with caverns). In the end, Baker has the foundation of an SF saga that’s waiting for a story and a hero.
An entertaining retrospective that explores a smart and innovative alien civilization.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 46
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
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
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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