by Stephen Renneberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
Vast-scale space-opera/combat adventure ably handled by a genre master and commander.
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In this fifth installment of a far-future SF series, a well-connected Earth Intelligence Service agent gets tested to the limits of his resources when a vicious alien empire launches an invasion of Earth.
The setting is the year 4608. Sirius Kade, Renneberg’s recurring hero and first-person narrator, is a top Earth Intelligence agent, once masquerading as a humble merchant. Now, he’s no longer an undercover operative because of his Forrest Gump–like tendency to be at the center of all the action in intergalactic intrigue and warfare between numerous, highly advanced alien cultures and races. (Sirius also happens to be the brother of a prominent space pirate.) After having finally revealed his hidden life to his true love, Marie, Sirius is enjoying a vacation idyll in the French Alps, where he plans to propose. Then, a long-awaited catastrophe erupts. Earth is invaded in a blitzkrieg action by the series’ primary menace, the Spawn, a pitiless, amphibian-style race whose robotic soldiers and invulnerable, armored ships are paving their way to conquering the cosmos. Earth is the latest Spawn beachhead to be easily defeated, and Sirius, one of the alien empire’s most wanted enemies, sacrifices his freedom to keep Marie safe. How can he (and the planet) get out of this jam? These momentous events occur in the opening chapters. Renneberg’s skillful prose then sends readers on fairly breathless leaps from one prison planet hell world or hopelessly outmatched/outgunned combat scenario to another. This rousing tale is for readers who may have complained that Star Wars did not have enough star wars. But there is actually intriguing intellectual content (and breathing space) in these pages, as some beings in the supporting cast argue for a more enlightened path and claim that even the ravenous Spawn are not beyond redemption. The characters hit proper larger-than-life notes (though Sirius is a bit of a standard smart/tough guy). A relatively minor complaint is that the author’s deliriously variegated ensemble of outer-space creatures and civilizations often boil down to anthropomorphized versions of recognizable Earth fauna (snakes, pongids, beetles), bringing along their associated personalities and characteristics. But none of that should stop fans turning the pages at rates approaching luminal speed.
Vast-scale space-opera/combat adventure ably handled by a genre master and commander.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9941840-8-5
Page Count: 467
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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.
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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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Margaret Atwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
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New York Times Bestseller
Booker Prize Winner
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston
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SEEN & HEARD
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