Some of the story covers familiar sci-fi terrain, but laser blasts and galactic pursuits make for a stellar tale.
Prisoners break free in an extraordinary ship powerful enough to hunt pirates and stop innocents from becoming slaves in the first of Goodson’s (Dark Soul Silenced, 2013, etc.) sci-fi series.
Sixteen-year-old Jess was born in captivity. But he has a chance to escape when he and fellow prisoners Matt and Sal step onto a ship to check it for booby traps. Bolts of electricity inside the vessel knock off the trio’s control collars, and they take the opportunity to run. Strangely, the ship, named the Wanderer, responds to Jess’ touch, allowing the group a clean getaway. The Wanderer fixes a “web of strands” to Jess and ultimately links to him without a physical connection. As ship captain, the teenager answers a distress call, and after he destroys a menacing Imperial craft, a number of passengers join Jess, Matt, and Sal. But some of those people may have taken others against their wills. Jess returns children to their homes, or stations, but is surprised by a shocking attack followed by a devastating betrayal. It seems everyone wants the Wanderer, especially those who witness the ship’s speed and ferocity. Jess and his remaining allies duck out on Washington (the planet), near a mining complex that’s a base for illicit activities like slave trading. They plan to infiltrate a band of criminals and liberate its bevy of prisoners. The fast-paced novel kicks the action into high gear; the opening chase with absconding prisoners is followed by numerous battle scenes in the Wanderer. Romance between Jess and rescued Ali happens almost immediately, like a YA story, while the never-been-kissed hero blushes quite often. Nevertheless, Jess and the ship’s relationship remains unquestionably engrossing. He essentially acts as the Wanderer’s conscience, bringing its mind to life—which explains his phenomenal piloting skills. The story’s a little derivative of other works, particularly Star Wars: the prime baddies are collectively the Empire, while alien Teeko’s jumbled speech too closely resembles Yoda’s. But Goodson leaves open plenty of plot avenues, including origins for Jess and the Wanderer, to explore in the series’ sequels.
Some of the story covers familiar sci-fi terrain, but laser blasts and galactic pursuits make for a stellar tale.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4910-9979-7
Page Count: 250
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2016
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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