An intriguing if unsteady novel that slips and slides on all that ice, never quite finding its footing.
A meek bureaucrat travels to the Arctic in this new novel by Himmer (Writing, Literature and Publishing/Emerson College; The Bee-Loud Glade, 2011, etc.).
Himmer’s Everyman protagonist is Oscar, a man who once dreamed of exploring the Arctic but has instead settled for an office job at the Bureau of Ice Prognostication in Washington, D.C. Oscar's days at this strange government agency involve regularly checking a “pole cam” (which delivers real-time images of the Arctic) and focusing on the minutiae of his office, including the overhead light bulb and his food-obsessed partner, Alexi. As Oscar dreams of a more exciting life, Himmer finds shades of Walter Mitty. Then true adventure arrives; Oscar receives a new, mysterious assignment to travel to the Arctic. But what exactly is the purpose of this trip? And who are the strange men and women who seem to be following him, from the subways of D.C. to the cobblestone streets of Portland, Maine? Himmer’s core—the bureaucrat asked to do big things—recalls Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and the work of Douglas Adams, and there’s great hope that the novel will be a stunner once its plot gets rolling. But Himmer never quite finds his tone: if adventure, the book needs to move faster; if satire, it needs a firmer target. As a result, the novel feels static in its middle sections; even though Oscar is on a great journey, he has no control over any of it, and it's unclear where the tension and suspense lie. Himmer’s best writing is elegiac, as when Oscar reflects on his aloof wife and their disintegrating marriage. (In a great moment, Himmer makes the word “Moo” sound sadder than anything else.) But he doesn’t maintain this tone—doesn’t quite maintain any tone, really.
An intriguing if unsteady novel that slips and slides on all that ice, never quite finding its footing.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-935439-98-1
Page Count: 285
Publisher: Ig Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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