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THESE BURNING STARS

From the Kindom Trilogy series , Vol. 1

An exciting start from a fresh talent, offering emotional and political complexity plus plenty of interplanetary action.

An intricate plot for revenge drives this far-future SF political thriller, a debut novel that is also the first of a trilogy.

The planets of the Treble are ruled by the Kindom, a religious order, and the wealthy First Families. Esek Nightfoot, a cruel, vicious, and sociopathically self-interested Cleric and First Family scion, cut off all career opportunities for a brilliant student called Six, challenging them to do something “extraordinary” to impress her into taking them as a novitiate. Six’s “extraordinary” act was to leave school before graduation and begin collecting evidence that exposes the Nightfoots’ complicity in a genocide. Esek has pursued Six for years, often with the uneasy assistance of Cleric Chono, a far more pious person who feels loyalty both to Six, a former schoolmate, and to Esek, who once pulled Chono out of a sexually abusive situation. Their quest eventually leads to Jun Ironway, a gifted hacker who holds a piece of the data implicating the Nightfoots and also has her own dark history with both Esek and Six. Does Esek want to kill Six, as her family’s matriarch demands, or make good on her promise to make them one of her novitiates? Or does she have something else entirely in mind? As the political situation of the Treble becomes more unstable, the chase careens toward a violent and shocking endgame. The narrative jumps around in time, fully filling in past events that are initially referenced in the present-day story. At first this seems unnecessary and confusing, but as several staggering twists emerge, it becomes clear that the choice is utterly necessary and the confusion might actually be the author’s method of obscuring a key revelation. The reader may figure out that revelation before it explodes in the text but will likely be surprised by a good part of what follows. The author also does an excellent job of applying what are typically high fantasy or historical fiction tropes (the tension between religious and secular entities, the unrest over the hereditary passage of power, and the fraught relationship between mentor and student) to high-tech science fiction (perhaps Dune was an influence?).

An exciting start from a fresh talent, offering emotional and political complexity plus plenty of interplanetary action.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-316-46332-4

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Orbit

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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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

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THE MINISTRY OF TIME

This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.

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A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.

In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.

This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.

Pub Date: May 7, 2024

ISBN: 9781668045145

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Avid Reader Press

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

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