A smartly executed jumping-off point for new readers in a complex SF saga.
Political and interdimensional challenges confront the Taran Empire in a new series that continues DuBoff’s Cadicle Universe SF saga.
Jason is a scion of the Sietinen Dynasty, which rules the galaxy-spanning Taran Empire. Blessed with telepathic and telekinetic abilities, he works in the Taran Selective Service, headquartered within Earth’s moon. One day he learns that a salvage ship, the Andvari, has been attacked by what appears to be a “transdimensional space kraken.” Worse, the attack happened near the Rift—a “spatial tear” left over from the end of the Bakzen War, 30 years before. Jason’s father, TSS High Commander Wil Sietinen, reveals that the Tarans have been accused of violating an ancient treaty with two alien races—one being the Gatekeepers, the other an unknown quantity. The Tarans don’t know how they violated it, but the Gatekeepers warn that the unknown beings are seeking retribution. Did the malicious, now-deposed Priesthood leave behind clues on Morningstar Isle, their former home, which can help alleviate the crisis? Meanwhile, on the Outer Colony of Duronis, the Sovereign People’s Alliance plans to sow chaos for the ruling family, and Lexi Karis has infiltrated the group to learn the fate of her missing friend, Melisa. DuBoff successfully accomplishes the tricky balancing act of acknowledging the massive Cadicle Universe narrative while also pushing forward into new territory. New readers will definitely feel like they’ve missed a few happenings that comprise the series’ fabric, such as the battle against the Priesthood. Fortunately, for much of the novel’s first half, the most compelling drama remains personal, such as Jason’s breakup with his lover, Tiff. When tragedy eventually strikes, the consequences are immense, as they provide an answer to the adventure’s biggest mystery and bring Earth into the Taran fold. Meanwhile, Raena, Jason’s twin sister who rules Morningstar Isle, weighs in on cultural politics: “There’s such a focus on uniqueness and differences that it’s divided people more than bringing them together.” By the end, a rattled status quo hints at an intriguing sequel.
A smartly executed jumping-off point for new readers in a complex SF saga.Pub Date: March 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-95-434420-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dawnrunner Press
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2021
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
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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