MECHA ROGUE

Name: MECHA ROGUE
Author: Brett Patton
ISBN: 978-0-451-46490-3

by Brett Patton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 4, 2012

Slam-bang action with never a dull moment: imagine a 21st century Lensman series, if anybody still remembers E.E. “Doc”...

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In style and violence, a hybrid of the movies Transformers and Independence Day: the sequel to Mecha Corps (2011).

Capt. Matt Lowell is the interstellar Union’s finest Mecha Corps warrior, not least because of his total recall—he calls it his Perfect Record—and his ability to merge his Mecha’s sensory interface, effectively his consciousness, with those of other Mecha pilots. The Mecha are huge, massively powerful, morphing robotic machines developed by Dr. Salvatore Roth to combat the Union's enemy, the Corsairs. Previously, Matt joined the Mecha Corps in order to hunt down and kill Rayder, the genetically engineered HuMax superman who murdered his father. Matt’s latest mission is to destroy a secret lab on a remote planet where more HuMax are being created. But, to his horrified astonishment, he discovers that the Union is behind both the lab and the HuMax, and the mission involves exterminating essentially helpless beings. Unable to stomach the pointless slaughter, he turns rogue and flees with his Mecha to the Corsairs, a vastly more disparate and advanced group than he had been led to believe. And this is just the first of a series of surprises that will cause Matt to question everything he has been told. The narrative moves at a thousand miles an hour, with just enough depth to the backdrop to avoid obvious pitfalls, and makes worthy efforts at character development, though the plotting’s as far-fetched as you might expect, with Matt able to summon up still another battle-winning superpower whenever he needs it.

Slam-bang action with never a dull moment: imagine a 21st century Lensman series, if anybody still remembers E.E. “Doc” Smith, without the latter’s lofty black-and-white moral tone and awful prose.

Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-451-46490-3

Page Count: 368

Publisher: ROC/Penguin

Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012

Categories:

SCIENCE FICTION

- PROFILES
Brett Patton and His Mecha Universe

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New York Times Bestseller

DEVOLUTION

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

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

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Awards & Accolades

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Our Verdict

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New York Times Bestseller

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.