A shipshape but easygoing romp that offers youngsters the comical wish fulfillment of being let loose on a starship.
In this middle-grade-SF sequel, Eudora Jenkins, a spacegoing third-grader, schemes to free a group of live lobsters before it’s served as part of a starship banquet—with unexpected results.
Horn offers the second entry in his series, following Eudora Space Kid: The Great Engine Room Takeover(2021). Eudora is an elementary-school-age girl in the year 4021, whose mother serves aboard a giant “astroliner” called the Athena. It’s populated by a diverse, multispecies crew who hail from all over the 20-world Planetary Republic. The security chief, Lt. Londo, is a leonine alien called a Qlaxon, whose fearsome warrior society is traditionally the antagonist of the Republic, but he’s a pleasant guy; Eudora’s adoptive father, Max, is a part-cephalopod scientist. The young girl manages to get into trouble routinely on the ship, much to the consternation of long-suffering Captain Jax and his no-nonsense Number Two, Stella Ying. Eudora’s misadventures this time around center on the girl’s realization that a shipboard colony of 30 live lobsters, which are objects of intense study by Max, are currently in demand as food at the great ship’s annual New Year’s Dinner Buffet. Eudora is properly horrified at this possibility, and with her friend Arnold, Londo’s human stepson, she conspires to raid her father’s lab and abduct the endangered crustaceans. But what is her next step to guarantee that the lobsters do not end up as seafood? It turns out that Eudora has not quite thought that far ahead, and she hasn’t quite worked out all the details of her plan.
This series’ fictional world obviously has a very strong Star Trek influence, although its tone is one of juvenile-level whimsy. The massive Athena is a clear stand-in for the USS Enterprise and the catlike Qlaxon seem to be generally modeled after the cherished Starfleet frenemies, the Klingons (although the Trek universe has a feline-esque species of aliens, too, known as the Caitians). In addition, the children even carry around very helpful tricorders by another name. Eudora is shown to have clear STEM ambitions in her goal to be the ship’s chief engineer someday, although that aspect of her character is shown to be somewhat less vital to the plot over the course of this installment. The narrative has no violence to speak of and the work’s central plea for animal rights (at least when it comes to lobsters) is generally conveyed with a very light touch. The work is also accessorized with grayscale illustrations by Hoover, which have a style that’s mildly reminiscent of anime. In general, this is an upbeat work that makes a fine chapter-book diversion for young readers, who may possibly use this series as a springboard to some of the juvenile-skewing titles by such SF authors as Robert A. Heinlein; for example, if one likes Eudora’s SF adventures, one may later love Heinlein’s 1963 novel Podkayne of Mars, which features the adventures of 15-year-old girl on a spaceliner.
A shipshape but easygoing romp that offers youngsters the comical wish fulfillment of being let loose on a starship.Pub Date: March 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73667-742-1
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.
A collegiate diver and swimmer secretly pursue kink together, and risk falling in love along the way.
Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling. Despite a successful recovery from the injury that almost ended her Stanford diving career, she hasn’t been able to get her head together, and it’s affecting her performance. Plus, she’s trying to stay focused on getting into medical school. A relationship would be out of the question. By comparison, Lukas Blomqvist is a swimming idol, a record-breaker who wins medals as easily as breathing, and Scarlett has long been convinced he would never look in her direction—until one fateful night when a mutual friend lets slip that they have something unexpected in common: Scarlett likes to be submissive in the bedroom, while Lukas prefers to take a dominant approach. Now, they both know a big secret about each other, and it’s something neither of them can stop thinking about. It’s Lukas who suggests they have a fling—purely physical, just to take the edge off, so Scarlett can get out of her own head and stop overthinking her dives. Initially, their arrangement is easy to stick to, but the more time they spend together, the more Scarlett starts to realize that what she feels for Lukas is more than physical attraction. Complicating the situation is the fact that Scarlett’s friend Penelope Ross used to go out with Lukas, and the longer Scarlett keeps mum about her true feelings for him, the more difficult it is to keep the situation hidden from another person she really cares about. While Scarlett and Lukas’ relationship does begin as a physical one, their deeper psychological connection takes a little too long to emerge amid all the other storylines, resulting in a somewhat rushed resolution. However, Hazelwood’s latest is proof of the depth and maturity that has emerged in her writing over the years, and it highlights her embrace of sexier, more emotional elements than were present in her original STEMinist rom-coms.
A surprisingly sensual sports romance.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593641057
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
