Sharp characterization boosts this leisurely paced but engrossing SF series opener.
In this debut SF novel, an Egyptian artifact propels a ninth-century alchemist to a strange, futuristic planet.
In 832, Al-Khidr guides an exploration team through a pyramid in Giza, Egypt. The Iraqi alchemist leads the visitors to valuables that they collect for an Islamic ruler. But Al-Khidr is more interested in such discoveries as oddly malleable glass and metals that have apparently never rusted. While trying to identify a metal orb and a glass shard, he joins the artifacts together, resulting in a glowing, surprisingly mobile sphere that knocks him unconscious. He awakens in another place, one with unknown, sophisticated technology, that he soon learns isn’t even on Earth. The glowing sphere transported him to a kingdom on planet Lyra. As far as the Lyrians are concerned, Al-Khidr’s home world is cursed. A space mission there millennia ago brought back the deadly disease Mutmut, which kills nearly every male Lyrian it infects. There’s still no cure, but Al-Khidr promises benevolent Queen Hathor that he’ll find one if he returns to Earth. Unfortunately, a growing uprising against the queen, along with the Lyrians’ fear of the “alien-human” from that wretched planet, threatens everyone. Odin’s deliberately paced tale delivers tense set pieces; even before Mutmut-phobic Lyrians prove dangerous, Al-Khidr faces off against thieving bandits in Giza. Moreover, the narrative spotlight illuminates the entire cast and includes a lengthy backstory about the largely secret Earth mission, which involved betrayal and murder. The author’s straightforward prose weaves real-life history into the narrative with panache. The story features delightful references to the origins of Egypt’s pyramids as well as Lyrians sharing names with historical figures. As this is Book 1 of a trilogy, Odin leaves some things unresolved, like Al-Khidr’s potential adversary back on Earth and Lyra’s troublesome pirates and bounty hunters, whom readers never see. Still, the frenzied ending makes tracking down Book 2 a virtual necessity.
Sharp characterization boosts this leisurely paced but engrossing SF series opener.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-954313-06-4
Page Count: 409
Publisher: Odin Fantasy World
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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