A tale of a once-and-futuristic king that combines juvenile adventure elements and more mature intrigue.
In Hickman’s latest SF series entry, an Earth teenager who’s also the king of the Milky Way galaxy prepares to defend his massive realm against an ancient enemy dragon.
“So many things have changed since I've left home, and it's only been about ten months,” understates young Richard Plantagenet in this continuation of a saga begun with Richard: Distant Son(2022). Until recently, he was Richard Drumm, a small-town Ohio teenager; then he found out that he’s the hereditary heir to the throne of a galactic kingdom. This spacefaring destiny has been brewing for 1,000 years, ever since his royal grandfather and immediate family members died due to a conspiracy by a jealous usurper. The revelation that a boy from Earth—a despised planet—carries the crucial Plantagenet DNA has led to much plotting and scheming; although many planets of the realm celebrate the return of the monarchy, the power-hungry Senator Spartacus and his conniving family want to take control themselves. In this installment, they launch a conspiracy to abduct and murder the teen, but are unaware that the boy’s steadfast guardian—an artificial alien lifeform, or AAL—has created an emergency duplicate of Richard, dubbed Henry, for just such occasions. Richard and Henry are switched, but the price of escape turns out to be a steep one. The Spartacus household sends an assassin among the foxlike citizens of the planet Beowulf to kill Richard’s pregnant queen, Amber. However, the essential function of the Plantagenet king is to enact a once-a-millennium defense of the galaxy, partnering with satyrs and flying horses against a banished species of long-lived, teleporting dragons. The barrier between the dragon’s prison dimension and the capital world of Krel is thinning, and Richard must do his duty.
Blending SF, mythic fantasy, not-very-hard science, and references to Hollywood SF properties (even the TV series Sliders gets a shoutout), the epic narrative offers readers a mixture of the sophisticated and the jejeune. The latter aspect is sometimes abetted by close encounters of the bathroom-humor kind; one such moment elicits this reaction: “Richard almost lost his breakfast. ‘You have got to be kidding me!’ ” There are still some unanswered questions, carried over from the series’ inception, about mighty beings who transcend time and space and oversee everything with godlike authority; they include AAL’s mentor, Olaf, an ordinary-looking old man in a battered hat who’s invisible to most. There are deeper themes at work amid the action and menagerie of unusual creatures: Human beings are portrayed as having run the Milky Way government for centuries, mainly for their own benefit, and marginalizing a vast number of other intelligent species along the way (including rabbit folk, multi-limbed extraterrestrials, merpeople, and centaurs, among others). Fair-minded Richard not only launches his progressive reign with inclusivity in government and society, but also mates with foxlike alien Amber, which many consider taboo. As such, readers should be prepared for references to interspecies sexual couplings and sperm-related procedures, as well as profanity.
A tale of a once-and-futuristic king that combines juvenile adventure elements and more mature intrigue.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985477788
Page Count: 378
Publisher: RedFoxOnHigh
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.
This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery.
Gideon Nav, a foundling of mysterious antecedents, was not so much adopted as indentured by the Ninth House, a nearly extinct noble necromantic house. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to leave the place where everyone despises her and join the Cohort, the imperial military. But after her most recent escape attempt fails, she finally gets the opportunity to depart the planet. The heir and secret ruler of the Ninth House, the ruthless and prodigiously talented bone adept Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chooses Gideon to serve her as cavalier primary, a sworn bodyguard and aide de camp, when the undying Emperor summons Harrow to compete for a position as a Lyctor, an elite, near-immortal adviser. The decaying Canaan House on the planet of the absent Emperor holds dark secrets and deadly puzzles as well as a cheerfully enigmatic priest who provides only scant details about the nature of the competition...and at least one person dedicated to brutally slaughtering the competitors. Unsure of how to mix with the necromancers and cavaliers from the other Houses, Gideon must decide whom among them she can trust—and her doubts include her own necromancer, Harrow, whom she’s loathed since childhood. This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences.
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31319-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.
Having survived a disastrous deep space mission in 2038, three asteroid miners plan a return to their abandoned ship to save two colleagues who were left behind.
Though bankrolled through a crooked money laundering scheme, their original project promised to put in place a program to reduce the CO2 levels on Earth, ease global warming, and pave the way for the future. The rescue mission, itself unsanctioned, doesn't have a much better chance of succeeding. All manner of technical mishaps, unplanned-for dangers, and cutthroat competition for the precious resources from the asteroid await the three miners. One of them has cancer. The international community opposes the mission, with China, Russia, and the United States sending questionable "observers" to the new space station that gets built north of the moon for the expedition. And then there is Space Titan Jack Macy, a rogue billionaire threatening to grab the riches. (As one character says, "It's a free universe.") Suarez's basic story is a good one, with tense moments, cool robot surrogates, and virtual reality visions. But too much of the novel consists of long, sometimes bloated stretches of technical description, discussions of newfangled financing for "off-world" projects, and at least one unneeded backstory. So little actually happens that fixing the station's faulty plumbing becomes a significant plot point. For those who want to know everything about "silicon photovoltaics" and "orthostatic intolerance," Suarez's latest SF saga will be right up their alley. But for those itching for less talk and more action, the book's many pages of setup become wearing.
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18363-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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