An entertaining, epic sci-fi outing in compact form.
In this sci-fi debut, a teen in the year 3526 races to retrieve an artifact that’s taken his little brother and has the capacity to destroy Earth.
Naturally curious brothers Chase and Jax Dekker tend to peruse antiques in the storage area behind dad Leo’s shop. Chase, fascinated by a puzzle box stashed among old books, is shocked when the box opens and a hovering disk and accompanying spheres come out. The disk sears a marking onto Chase’s chest but hits Jax with a beam that appears to encase the boy in the object’s emerald center before flying away. When Leo hears what’s happened, he admits to Chase that he’s a former Interplanetary Alliance Command agent and was hiding the dangerous artifact, which years ago annihilated an entire planet. The box also includes a map, showing the general direction of the disk and sporting an ongoing countdown. If Chase doesn’t catch up to the disk within an estimated two-and-a-half months, he’ll likely lose both his brother and his home planet. Leo and his wife, Cloe, are later detained by rogue Interplanetary agents, leaving Chase to hitch a ride on his own. Lendar Hawking, meanwhile, escapes from prison and searches for the disk, oddly familiar with the planet-obliterating relic and inexplicably linked to Chase. Wandschneider tightly packs his hefty plot into a relatively short novel. Chase traverses the universe to multiple worlds and encounters copious characters, most of whom try to rip him off or double-cross him. Paira Sange is the best and seemingly the most trustworthy; in her delightful introduction, she immediately pegs Chase as someone who’s on the moon illegally. In like manner, Lendar is gleefully ambiguous, a villain who can’t be all that bad. He intentionally gets arrested, resulting in the Interplanetary Alliance confiscating his ship—and repairing it for free. Wandschneider occasionally skims finer details: a curious moon-walking Chase sees “totally new,” Earth-restricted domesticated animals, with no further elaboration. Nevertheless, the author delivers a narrative with an impressive pace, a protagonist whose single-minded mission retains focus, and a few surprises along the way—like how Lendar knows when to initiate a breakout.
An entertaining, epic sci-fi outing in compact form.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
