A lavish historical epic that balances details and emotional impact.
This series opener follows various Pleistocene hominids as they struggle for survival.
In East Africa, 850,000 years ago, Xhosa is a female Homo erectus who enjoys the physicality of hunting and fighting. Her father, who desires peace, is the People’s Leader. Her mother was killed in front of her by one of the vicious Big Heads (Homo sapiens), who want complete control over any territory they find. When her father is likewise killed by Big Heads, Xhosa competes with Nightshade, whom she may mate with, to become the new Leader. Further encounters with the Big Heads bring Xhosa into contact with the handsome Wind, one of two brothers leading the savages. While his brother, Thunder, is remorseless, Wind is willing to talk and reveals a reverence for Xhosa. Meanwhile, in southern Africa, Pan-do (Homo erectus) and his People have been traveling for over a month. They also flee Big Head violence and hope to find a place to settle down, possibly alongside the gentle Homo habilis Uprights. Lyta, Pan-do’s daughter, walks lamely yet is attuned to nature and the realm of the mind in ways unheard of to the People. Her dreams may be the key to uniting disparate clans and finding true safety. Beginning a new trilogy, Murray (Born in a Treacherous Time, 2018, etc.) continues to chronicle how humanity spread across the globe from an origin point in Africa. While taking dramatic liberty with the notion of speech (as readers know it), the author presents characters who face the hard choices that have plagued heroes throughout storytelling’s history. Despite the truth that “the more aggressive, the longer life lasted,” Xhosa knows that the People can’t survive on war alone. Art, dreams, and empathy are bedrock components of society; they also advance the narrative in fabulous ways, including tying Xhosa to famed human ancestor Lucy. The clear message that humanity should live in harmony with nature rather than endlessly consuming and expanding should resonate more than ever with modern audiences.
A lavish historical epic that balances details and emotional impact.Pub Date: March 6, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Structured Learning LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2019
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 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.
