In this series opener by three acclaimed authors, intriguing protagonists and cinematic powers will surely please adventure...
A sextet of mutant superhero teenagers just want to be safe in this weighty tome.
Last summer, Ethan had so antagonized his fellow Zeroes that their friendship ended. Now his own carelessness has made him a material witness in a bank robbery, and only the Zeroes can rescue him. Ethan, you see, has a secret power: “the voice.” The voice knows more than Ethan himself ever could and uses Ethan’s mouth to tell people what they need to hear in order to get Ethan out of the frying pan—though there's often a nearby fire. The other Zeroes have equally strange abilities, including Nigerian-American Chizara's ability to crash the myriad technological gadgets that cause her chronic pain; rich, Latino Nate's "Glorious Leader" charisma; and blind, white Riley's (overdone and too-obvious) extraordinary vision. The teens undergo no particular quest; the story’s driving force is the desire to escape drug-dealing mobsters. Given the fizz superhero teens could contribute to any narrative, this tome is oddly weighty in both tone and heft. These solidly characterized 16- and 17-year-olds all have younger siblings who seem quirky enough for sequel-bait; hopefully they won't become more noise in the already-crowded premise.
In this series opener by three acclaimed authors, intriguing protagonists and cinematic powers will surely please adventure fans who don't mind an ensemble developed at the expense of the individual . (Science fiction. 13-15)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4336-4
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Readers who stick it out to the action-packed climax will be curious about what's coming next
The first of a two-book adventure series sends a gifted warrior-in-training out into the desert to die.
In a fantasy world with the flavor of the Central Asian steppes, Raim is a 15-year-old nomad determined to join the elite forces of the Khanate. Since he was a child, he's been best friends with the Khan's heir, and if he passes his tests he'll be young Khareh's most trusted fighter. He need only make an Absolute Vow, an oath sworn on a knot. If the maker of a knotted promise is forsworn, the knot burns a hideous scar on the oathbreaker's body, and a grotesque shadow appears, haunting the breaker of the promise and causing his countrymen to drive him into the wilderness. With a loaded gun like that hanging on the wall, readers know it will soon be fired. Yet when Raim does set a promise knot afire, it's through no choice of his own but from some terrible misadventure. If he can only survive the shame of banishment, the desert's poisonous bugs and the city of the oathbreakers, Raim can learn his terrible family secrets—except those best left for the sequel. Worldbuilding grows through exposition that plods as slowly as Raim's trudge through the sands.
Readers who stick it out to the action-packed climax will be curious about what's coming next . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7387-4405-6
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Lucky U.K. readers get cliffhangers and toothsome prose, but at least Americans still get the thrills of the shooting...
In a very near future, two teenagers in a scarcely functional London are caught up in terrorist plots.
Nat and Charlie live in an England with an economy just a touch worse than the real thing: Austerity cuts are closing hospitals, shrinking police departments, and leaving countless people unemployed and hungry. As the novel opens, Charlie, fighting with her mum in the free food line, barely survives the terrorist bomb that claims her mother's life. Nat knows about the bomb but—convinced his brother, Lucas, is the bomber—tries and fails to stop the attack in time. Now Charlie lives with relatives, and Nat (who hasn't reported his suspicions about Lucas) needs to understand his now-comatose brother's motivations. How had cheerful, peaceful Lucas fallen in with the racist terrorists of the League of Iron? In a series of brief first-person chapters, Nat and Charlie cope with the bombing's aftermath. Nat's attempts to infiltrate the League of Iron lead both teenagers into dangerous plots against the people and government of England (and into conversations with thugs who make violent, despicable, racist threats). Despite their attempts to defeat the villains, everything goes to hell just in time for the heavily foreshadowed reveals to set up the sequel. Though the action-packed suspense is up to snuff, heavy-handed Americanization leaves both characters and setting bland and flavorless.
Lucky U.K. readers get cliffhangers and toothsome prose, but at least Americans still get the thrills of the shooting practice and bombing plots . (Thriller. 13-15)Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1394-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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