A dense but often engrossing tale, grounded in a relatable love affair.
Buxton offers an SF story about interplanetary love triumphing, despite the odds.
Dina Bellaire is a beautiful Terran scientist residing on the planet Wakanreo, immersed in an alien civilization in which her own people occupy a complex and controversial role. In Wakanrean culture, romantic relationships are formed through shahgunrah—a once-in-a-lifetime experience in which two participants are unified in a physical and psychological connection; if Wakanreans can’t find such a connection, they become ill. Terrans are capable of eliciting a similar passion in Wakanreans, called glashunrah, without experiencing its throes themselves. Both cultures believe that humans and Wakanreans can’t experience the reciprocal union of shahgunrah. However, Dina and a Wakanrean named Kuaron Du instantly feel an unusually passionate connection when they first meet, and soon, Dina is pregnant with twins. The shahgunrah they share gives rise to fear and discrimination that puts Dina’s life in danger. When the Wakanreans develop a vaccine that will remove Terrans’ ability to inspire glashunrah in Wakanrean people, Dina is compelled by lawto accept the treatment, even if it jeopardizes her shahgunrahai with Kauron Du. Fans of SF romance are certain to appreciate Buxton’s vivid, imaginative landscape, which she populates with thoughtful cultural elements and extensively detailed history. That said, this complex story is replete with political machinations and legal proceedings, which may not be to all readers’ tastes, and casual readers may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new terms and concepts, despite the included glossary. Still, readers will feel truly immersed in the religion, values, and technology of Wakanreo and appreciate the relevance of Buxton’s depiction of a couple fighting for their relationship in a climate of intolerance in this thought-provoking work.
A dense but often engrossing tale, grounded in a relatable love affair.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9979898-2-3
Page Count: 387
Publisher: Cracked Mirror Press
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2021
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
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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