A rewarding SF adventure on a particularly vivid alien world.
A human refugee colony on the planet Kamaria finds clues that a vile machine-creature race that conquered Earth has infiltrated this world as well.
In this SF sequel, Bruno continues the Song of Kamaria series that began with In the Orbit of Sirens (2020). Humanity fled a solar system conquered by the Undriel, a homegrown cyborg race that assimilates humanoids (rather like the Borg of the Star Trek series, but more insectoid in their augmentations). On the strange, distant world of Kamaria, a generation of Homo sapiens that built cities lives in an uneasy peace with the Natives, a birdlike species, some flightless, some not, called the Auk’nai, technologically adept yet prone to mysticism. The sudden slaughter of a formidable forest predator, held in esteem by many Auk’nai as a living god, presages dire clues pointing to the conclusion that the dreaded Undriel—or something with the race’s technology—have crossed the cosmos and landed on Kamaria. When a monstrous Auk’nai-like thing with biomechanical attributes kidnaps Cade and Nella Castus, the young adult children of hero pioneers Denton and Eliana Castus, a rescue expedition heads off into forbidden, eldritch realms and Lovecraft-ian caves, looking for answers. This volume is what the SF cognoscenti like to call a “planetary romance,” somewhat trickily defined as a story in which a striking world’s environment and culture drive and practically define the narrative. Indeed, the Auk’nai part of the tale fairly obviously reflects the fates of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples who were confronted with (and ruined by) European colonization/imperialism (“Humanity had a bad track record”). A complication here is that Kamaria’s biosphere includes tangible metaphysical elements—deities or the near equivalent, spirit forms, and other great whazzits—that come into play. Sometimes, these facets are thrilling (action and combat in the second half of the story come pretty much nonstop). Other times, the superpowers and otherworldly allies seem a little convenient, affecting the author’s well-hung cliffhangers (including an open ending). Or, as Denton notes, “anything is possible now.” Genre fans will be transfixed by the results and imagination at work and perhaps give additional points for a key character being deaf, something the Star Trek series only worked into one TV episode (after some persuasion, too).
A rewarding SF adventure on a particularly vivid alien world.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73464-706-8
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Tom Bruno Author
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.
Brown completes his science-fiction trilogy with another intricately plotted and densely populated tome, this one continuing the focus on a rebellion against the imperious Golds.
This last volume is incomprehensible without reference to the first two. Briefly, Darrow of Lykos, aka Reaper, has been “carved” from his status as a Red (the lowest class) into a Gold. This allows him to infiltrate the Gold political infrastructure…but a game’s afoot, and at the beginning of the third volume, Darrow finds himself isolated and imprisoned for his insurgent activities. He longs both for rescue and for revenge, and eventually he gets both. Brown is an expert at creating violent set pieces whose cartoonish aspects (“ ‘Waste ’em,’ Sevro says with a sneer” ) are undermined by the graphic intensity of the savagery, with razors being a favored instrument of combat. Brown creates an alternative universe that is multilayered and seething with characters who exist in a shadow world between history and myth, much as in Frank Herbert’s Dune. This world is vaguely Teutonic/Scandinavian (with characters such as Magnus, Ragnar, and the Valkyrie) and vaguely Roman (Octavia, Romulus, Cassius) but ultimately wholly eclectic. At the center are Darrow, his lover, Mustang, and the political and military action of the Uprising. Loyalties are conflicted, confusing, and malleable. Along the way we see Darrow become more heroic and daring and Mustang, more charismatic and unswerving, both agents of good in a battle against forces of corruption and domination. Among Darrow’s insights as he works his way to a position of ascendancy is that “as we pretend to be brave, we become so.”
An ambitious and satisfying conclusion to a monumental saga.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-345-53984-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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