Breezy, space-based fun with well-executed character development.
In Corley’s SF novel, an alien prince is finally ready to assume his throne after abandoning his responsibility years before.
Prince Parrtec was once the heir to the intergalactic kingdom known as the Twelve but decided to fake his death and walk away from everything he knew in exchange for a wandering life of fun and freedom. Now he goes by the name Parr, living on his beloved ship, the Aurora, which is reputed to be one of the fastest ships in existence. He mingles with all sorts of people, including pirates and other criminals in “the outer reaches.” But now he feels that it’s time to go back and take his rightful place after his parents’ deaths—if he can get through the well-defended gates of his home system of Bilena Epso Ach. A business opportunity goes awry that could have helped him do so, and he finds himself banned for life from entering the gates. Parr needs a new plan, but he has no more funds, and with the galaxy’s most feared bounty hunter hot on his trail for reasons unknown, Parr will need all the help he can get—even if it means siding with Manc, an old pirate with shady motives, and Ren, a secretive and alluring figure. Will Parr ever make it back home—and if he does, will the new queen, his sister, welcome him back? Politics and romance intertwine in this fun space adventure that follows Parr around the galaxy as he ostensibly tries to make his way back to his throne. However, readers will find that Parr’s journey turns out to be one of personal transformation and self-discovery. Over the course of the novel, he loses his initial obliviousness and gains a deeper understanding of what it truly means to be the heir of a privileged family—who may, in fact, be tyrants. Corley, the author of Ghost Bully (2018), also effectively develops the story to show how Parr learns to trust people other than himself during his travels. Sadly, the protagonist’s tale ends too soon, but it offers an open ending that promises more adventures.
Breezy, space-based fun with well-executed character development.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Electric Fern
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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