A high-stakes, highly entertaining interstellar adventure.
A high-concept military/space opera SF in which a crew primarily made of misfits and criminals are sent to operate the Fleet’s most mysterious warship.
Centuries in the future, the Planetary Union fights the warmongering religious fanatics of the Purist Nation, a war that may well be reaching its end because the Union Fleet now has a secret weapon: the James Keeling, the only warship with the capacity for interdimensional travel—an ability that keeps the ship hidden from its enemies until it’s time to surface and attack. Not that many know about it, and those who do are likely to be dead soon. The Keeling’s unique, innovative ability comes with a deadly cost: For every dive into the interdimensional reaches, aka the Mud, the crew suffer hallucinations that often cause violent behavior, psychosis, and mental breakdowns. People don’t call the ship the Crypt for nothing; those who end up conscripted there feel like they’re metaphorically and often literally entombed. And that’s why only those with nothing to lose and those convicted of terrible crimes serve on the Keeling. If they survive a two-year stint, their records are expunged. Sigler’s incredibly fun opener to this series slowly introduces the cast members, who include a court-martialed executive officer with a reputation of cowardice, a psychopathic killer with the right connections to avoid a death sentence, a Purist murderer and spy, and an old soldier not willing to retire yet. They all forge unexpected bonds with one another and with a (possibly living?) ship that can potentially kill them. “A bunch of misfits, miscreants, criminals, and total rookies that had only two things in common—they were all Fleet, and they’d all wallowed in the Mud.” Also includes convincing battle/action sequences and character arcs that engage, entertain, and will leave readers ready for more.
A high-stakes, highly entertaining interstellar adventure.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 585
Publisher: Aethon Books
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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