A violent, madcap, frequently entertaining scramble.
After years hiding out in plain sight, a royal heir sparks a revolution in his conquered city.
Despite brutal repression, rebellion is already simmering in Khul, renamed “Slave City” after the bloody invasion by the lighter-skinned Policy Makers six years before. When the arrival of the Policy Makers’ imperial Roc and his 13-year-old daughter, Fidelis, on a state visit sets off a coup attempt by his own subordinates, events escalate. The whirl of intrigue and increasing tensions catches up young Avtar—disguised since the murder of his royal parents as a flour-covered “Ghosty Boy” in the castle bakery—and culminates in a wild series of attacks, betrayals, chases, revelations, encounters on hidden staircases and improbable alliances. Just for fun, Jones also stirs in a flatulent lap dog and a prank that sends most of the Roc’s entourage hustling for the toilets, as well as providing amusing interchanges aplenty (“ ‘Did he really call me an untrusting cow?’…‘Who’d call you untrusting?’ he asked. ‘Or a cow?’ he added, just in time”). There are also a massive climactic storm and so many extremely convenient coincidences that it’s obvious some unseen supernatural player is at work. Sequels are certain, since the closing détente leaves almost everything unresolved.
A violent, madcap, frequently entertaining scramble. (Fantasy. 11-14)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-9084-5812-4
Page Count: 349
Publisher: Inside Pocket
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK TO SCREEN
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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