Part mystery, part romance, part sci-fi, Banghart’s fast-paced exploration of loyalty, identity and commitment is...
In Banghart’s (Moon Child, 2013, etc.) YA sci-fi novel, love, devotion, ambition and political scheming abound in a not-quite-dystopian future.
Although vaguely reminiscent of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008) and Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993), this tale quickly takes off in its own imaginative direction. Following the Peace Accords, the Five Dominions’ leaders now rule a post-famine, war- and natural disaster–stricken world. Women are deemed essential to rebuilding the population and thus forbidden from pursuing all dangerous activities. Teenage girls, along with some remaining young men, receive permanent tattoos representing one of four careers, or “life placements”: Health, Commerce, Technology or Environment. Crackerjack wing-jet flyer Aris Haan has her life figured out: She’ll be selected for Environment and work on the family farm, and her boyfriend, Calix, will be Health, and they’ll be Promised to each other. But Calix is unexpectedly assigned to the distant war effort, and Aris gets a surprising opportunity to fly. Thanks to new technology, and a secret training program, Aris can fight in the war and possibly get close to Calix. After she’s re-tattooed with the military insignia and fully disguised as a man, she joins a hidden network of military women. Throughout the novel, the focus shifts smoothly between Aris and Ward Galena, a top official who mysteriously disappeared after she announced sanctions against the Dominion behind the raging military conflict. Both Galena and Aris live outside societal norms and have past romantic ties that test their current decisions—and their fates are more strongly linked than they first appear. In the barracks, gender lines are blurred, love is tested, and intriguing possibilities arise, even if they aren’t always deeply explored; for example, what if a man is attracted to a man who turns out to be a disguised woman? What if the woman you love deepens her voice and shaves her lovely locks? And what if the face you see in the mirror isn’t always your own?
Part mystery, part romance, part sci-fi, Banghart’s fast-paced exploration of loyalty, identity and commitment is entertaining and intriguing.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493613205
Page Count: 377
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A bighearted and imaginative tale about a glam god’s fans.
Two teenagers find salvation in each other in this music-tinged YA sci-fi novel.
Teen Davi is struck by a girl he sees at a glam and glitter rock concert. She isn’t exactly beautiful, but there is something that draws him to her. When he sees her leaving the Angelus—the once-great hotel founded by his great-grandfather and where Davi and his sister still live—he follows her and eventually introduces himself. She is Anna Z., and she’s a girl of a million interests and theories. The two quickly bond over their love of glam god Django Conn, whom Anna sees as the next stage in human evolution: “We’re homo lux. Humans made out of light just like in the movies and the late show on TV. That’s Django—and that’s us too.” Anna opens Davi’s eyes to ideas that he’s never before considered. Davi thinks he’s found a new best friend even though he receives warnings that Anna is not what she appears to be. Nevertheless, he is strongly tempted to join Anna on a pilgrimage to follow Django’s tour across the continent and to discover the secret of “Alien Drift,” a mysterious force that might have great implications for the future of humanity. Watts (Stonecutter, 2006, etc.) writes in an inventive, energetic prose that synthesizes slang and youthful earnestness to capture the personality of narrator Davi: “One half of me was zapped by seeing this girl, like a knife juiced with electricity cutting into my brain. She was gone, vanished, disappeared inside herself.” The world of the novel, from its language and geography to its layers of popular culture, is drawn with intricacy and vitality. Some of the plot points may feel a bit contrived, but the colorful verisimilitude of Davi and his infatuation with Anna should propel readers forward. Django is perhaps a bit too obviously a David Bowie analog, but Watts successfully captures not only the gravity of a teenage subculture, but also the more mercurial feeling of an axial generation on the cusp of something completely new.
A bighearted and imaginative tale about a glam god’s fans.Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-946154-15-6
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Meerkat Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A zesty treat for YA and new-adult fantasists.
A young medieval woman embarks on a grim mission in this first installment of a fantasy romance series.
Nineteen-year-old Zera Y’shennria is a Heartless. Quite literally: A witch named Nightsinger has taken her heart and keeps it in a jar, making Zera her soldier. This was a kindness at first. (Bandits butchered Zera’s parents and left her to die; she’s only “alive” now thanks to witch magic.) But Zera has killed as a Heartless and suffers from the memories of those deaths and from an insistent hunger for raw flesh. Zera might hide behind sassy humor, yet she feels the emptiness in her chest. Even if her heart was returned to her, could she ever be truly human again? This question resounds when Zera is sent to take the heart of Prince Lucien d’Malvane, heir to the same kingdom that fought the Sunless War against the witches. If she succeeds—if she survives the courtly intrigue and turns Lucien into a Heartless—Zera will be restored. But Lucien is not like the other nobles. He does not crave death or power, and his imperious disdain cloaks a good man—someone for whom, despite herself, Zera finds she has feelings. Wolf (Burn Before Reading, 2017, etc.) depicts Heartlessness not merely as a sliver of dark fantasy, but also as a metaphor for love and life, thus encouraging the sort of late teen romance reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Zera is an exemplar of confident, capable, relentlessly witty young womanhood. She is assertive, proactive, and, above all, a fun character to follow, yet she’s sufficiently well-rounded that, if anything, her inner Heartless voice becomes too intrusive a reminder of the struggle she faces. The author brings this conflict out in any case through spirited use of the first-person, present tense and by way of a plot that flirts playfully with expectations. Having pulled readers in and enamored both them and Zera with its secondary characters, the droll story simmers, then bubbles toward a denouement—or as close as can be expected from the first book of a trilogy.
A zesty treat for YA and new-adult fantasists.Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64063-146-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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