A mostly heartening story of found families, full of lovable characters that anchor the political elements.
As relations between Earthlings and Martians grow increasingly hostile, two siblings must use their abilities to safeguard the galaxy in Overman’s SF series entry.
As the story begins in the far future, Martian Amos Fielder has just altered the course of a neutron star, which, with the help of mysterious life forms known as Sakshi, is set to collide with another neutron star in 20 years. After Amos lands on Phagea with his family, Earthling ships appear, leading to Amos’ death in an unprovoked attack. His young children, Gracely and Jered Fielder, are separated in the chaos; Gracely is taken in and raised by Sprat, a Phagean, and Jered is adopted by Capt. John Earl of the Solar Systems Freight Company and his wife, Cora—a religious Earthling couple who are unable to have biological children of their own. As the two adoptees grow up, with Jered hiding his Martian intelligence and Gracely piloting the ship (named HAL) that her father leaves her, their paths could not be further apart. That is, until Gracely’s and John’s ships come face-to-face with each other over the planet Phagea; Gracely takes an aggressive posture, and John refuses to reveal Earth’s mission. Although Martians are not known for unwarranted violence, his colleague, Capt. Winslow, has itchy trigger fingers, which results in a hostile interaction. With interplanetary relationships already strained, the United States capitalizes on anti-Martian propaganda to reignite old tensions. After Jered’s true identity is revealed, the crews must put aside their differences to prevent a full-blown war; meanwhile, those two neutron stars are on the verge of finally colliding.
Overman balances hard SF and political warfare with compelling characterization, effectively navigating the complexities of two worlds. The Martian protagonists are well-drawn, and they live together on the planet Harmony, which is also home to a variety of unique species that provide comic relief. There are the Trees, which helped to “defeat the genocidally paranoid Koombar” in previous volumes, and their children, who live in forests and resemble “large monkeys with long prehensile tails,” as well as the Phageans, silver-scaled creatures of remarkable intelligence, particularly in mathematics, who closely resemble pangolins. Although it rankles the Earthlings that the Martians have open family units and open relationships, the latter live happily within strong intraspecies care networks. The scenes involving HAL’s ragtag crew—Gracely, Torch, Robbi, and Sprat—are highly enjoyable and provide excellent character studies, particularly in scenes when they all eat together. However, there are some clumsy character descriptions that can be jarring: John’s hair is said to have the “texture of steel wool”; Robbi’s skin is the color of “chocolate-pudding”; and Torch has “vaguely Asian features.” The descriptions of the mysterious Sakshi, which are the focus of shorter, italicized chapters, have a cinematic quality: “brown and grey cloud of shifting shapes and frothing forms.” The eventual purpose of these creaturesis both clever and moving.
A mostly heartening story of found families, full of lovable characters that anchor the political elements.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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