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
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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