An engaging, SF–enriched tale with striking fantasy elements and diverse characters.
A ragtag crew searches for the fragments of an ancient wonder in this dystopian novel.
In a future Florida that includes augmented reality and biowarfare and is run by mega-corporations, Nagash “Gash” Jensen is a jaded veteran and ex–private investigator. He’s on the run from WalCo, a mega-corporation he angered after a botched job. He becomes the personal bodyguard of expert hacker Selina Kan, an aspiring archaeologist turning to less than legal means to gain access to the conflict-ridden island of Rhodes, a former Greek territory “with no major corporate interests to keep the peace.” Chasing down her father’s mysterious research into the missing pieces of the Colossus of Rhodes, the ancient statue of the sun god Helios, she believes there is more to the legend than meets the eye. Selina and Gash are joined by her assistant, Frederick Almond, a young man off the streets of Detroit, fresh, tough, and ready for the improbable. Their covert operation is funded by the mysterious, mob boss–like Hemmingway. Meanwhile, Interpol agents Sage and Hiroyuki are investigating a parallel ancient world mystery: that of international crimes and violence involving the Knights Hospitaller and the White Lotus gang—with Rhodes as the site of the action. As Selina faces sinister forces warning her away from the Colossus mystery, she and her group face WalCo on its hunt for Gash and get caught in the crossfire of the Knights Hospitaller and White Lotus. In the process, Selina and her cohorts encounter technological advances beyond their imaginations while the secrets they learn shake their understanding of humanity itself. The book’s prominent themes are found family, identity, and belonging; the dangers of technologically advanced mega-corporations; good versus evil; and humans versus mystical beings. Featuring parallel perspectives and storylines through various character viewpoints, the plot connects different pasts and presents together neatly. The story presents rich worldbuilding details without meandering and is consistently suspenseful. The focus on deliberately inclusive characterizations in the predominantly cis, White, male SF genre is masterful and commendable. Leunig seamlessly creates the voices of a gender-androgynous person (Sage) and a young woman of color (Selina), addressing issues of racism and heteronormativity without preaching or reducing the players to identity politics.
An engaging, SF–enriched tale with striking fantasy elements and diverse characters.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1951393175
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Spaceboy Books LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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