by Steph Swainston ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 18, 2005
Archaeologist Swainston—and her lyrical debut—got terrific press in England. Deservedly so.
“You wanna live forever?” the troopers cry in Heinlein’s Starship Troopers as they go bug-slaying. And in British fantast Swainston’s big bug-filled debut, one person does want to live forever amid the Circle called The Immortals.
The Insect swarms from Paperlands keep invading Awia, striving to push down the Insect Wall at Lowespass, where King Dunlin Rachiswater has his fortress on land recovered from the Insects. Elsewhere, the Emperor lives with the Immortals in the Castle on the border between Awia and Plainsland. Retreating soldiers burn villages in Awia before the Insects can take them over, although the Insects build beautiful paper hives on razed villages and riddle the ground with tunnels in battles that have raged back and forth for two thousand years. Hero Mercurius Comet, called Jant, who has been 23 for centuries, is the bewinged flying Messenger and functions literally as the god Mercury for the Olympian Immortals, a group of 50 alien-esque yet humanlike beings who lead mankind against the Insects. Jant, though, is a junkie and ex-pusher, not to say murderer, rapist, liar, and, in his better moments, a master manipulator, or Jung’s Trickster—altogether a nasty guy who really keeps our interest with his destructive lusts. Then there’s 1500-year-old Lightning Saker, a general dressed like the sun, who tries to curb Jant’s habit. With the right drug fix, though, Jant can Shift onto the golden plane of Epsilon, an alternate world where he has built Sliverkey, a palace he gives to the doomed Dunlin when Dunlin dies. Then the Insects overrun Summerday and Lowespass and build a wall around the Fortress, sealing it in. Is all lost?
Archaeologist Swainston—and her lyrical debut—got terrific press in England. Deservedly so.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-075387-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Eos/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
Share your opinion of this book
by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
138
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Max Brooks
BOOK REVIEW
by Max Brooks
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Samantha Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 2019
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
60
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by Samantha Shannon
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.