The author pushes her cast of Herans and earthlings—along with readers—through an unforgettable emotional crucible.
Earth descendants struggle to survive on an inhospitable planet in Maxwell’s sci-fi sequel to The Rasken (2011).
On the sparsely settled planet Hera, 16-year-old Margole once possessed the technology to teleport from place to place. Using a palm-embedded wonder called the rasken, she wielded power reserved for leaders of the various matriarchal tribes living along the Noku River. The technology is now broken, yet Margole still yearns to hunt and travel the river like the nomadic men who periodically visit the women’s villages. Meanwhile, on 54th-century Earth, marine researchers Karl Trax and Terra Woods discover an ancient spaceship at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Study of the vessel reveals that it once traveled to Hera to start a colony. This prompts a scientific voyage back to learn more about a divergent line of humanity. Karl and Terra are joined by Lt. Seran Talbur and sociologist T. E. Drummers. While first contact between the two groups goes smoothly, the scientists soon discover that the Noku River harbors an invasive population of insect larvae. Large moths hatch and start spreading a deadly parasite among both peoples, precipitating a struggle for survival not seen by the Herans for a thousand years, when Noku’s invaders last appeared. Maxwell (Butterfly Storm, 2011) continues the heroic arc of Margole in this second novel in the series, as she navigates her first disastrous Eros Ceremony (the mating ritual between stationary and nomadic tribes), and then throws in with the off-world scientists. Her reaction to their technology is grounded and endearing; in one tent she finds “smooth, shiny objects, some that spewed light, completely unlike that of the lanterns back home.” As the biological terror of the moths (among other creatures) amplifies and the tragedies pile up, Margole’s instincts to go against the grain prove invaluable to her tribe. Maxwell also broadens the scope of her series with a framing sequence involving manipulative aliens called the Avonades. YA and sci-fi audiences should love this ferociously smart sequel.
The author pushes her cast of Herans and earthlings—along with readers—through an unforgettable emotional crucible.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Alaskan Bookshelf
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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