A conspiracy maven’s dream, packed with gory alien-vampire action.
SF and dystopian horror merge in Alleva’s series starter.
World War III has just ended, and a peace treaty has been signed. In the United States, Sandy Cox,who’s pregnant and separated from her husband, finds herself on the run with a mysterious man named Phil. He’s trying to bring her to Atlanta, where she’ll be safe from the American, Chinese, and Russian soldiers who appear to be indiscriminately eliminating American men and boys, despite the peace. The pair’s plans are interrupted when they’re attacked by strange beings who kidnap Sandy; now, Phil must try to break her out of an underground compound staffed by gray, humanoid aliens and alien vampires called Dracs. The Dracs have been experimenting on human subjects in a quest to create a drug that enhances the taste of human blood, making for better feeding. However, Sanos, the leader of the Dracs in this compound, is driven mad by a new drug, and his rage drives him to imprison Telas, his second-in-command. Telas has been overseeing an attempt to make Sandy’s baby into an alien/human hybrid. Meanwhile, both Phil and the Dracs make use of a meditative ability they refer to as “the rose,” which gives them mysterious powers: “It is protection, a shield where anything that enters your sacred space is yours to bend and manipulate.” This ambitious novel plays unashamedly in the pulp-SF sandbox; as an American soldier puts it at one point: “For God’s sake, friggin alien vampires exist!” Alleva offers detailed descriptions of violence and of the Dracs’ physical appearance, and his writing is fast-paced and generally engaging throughout. However, it also offers halting, staccato moments that sometimes interrupt the narrative flow. Although he sets up the Dracs as clear villains, he provides plenty of insight into their culture and motivations, allowing readers to better understand the complexities of this dystopian world. Readers who can appreciate the conspiracy-minded plot will have a great deal of fun, as will fans of nonstop, high-stakes thrills.
A conspiracy maven’s dream, packed with gory alien-vampire action.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill and Birch Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A reasonably charming urban fantasy that could have used a more rigorous edit before primetime.
The latest in a series of rereleases from a prolific fantasist’s previously self-published works is a contemporary spin on the fairytale “Godfather Death.”
Viola Marek is an aswang, a shapeshifting vampire from Filipino folklore. She’s also a Chicago real estate agent trying to sell a mansion even while the ghost of its last owner, Thomas Edward Parker IV, is doing his supernatural best to block the sale. In a desperate attempt to earn her commission, she hires Fox D’Mora, Death’s mortal godson, to use his connection to get the ghost to leave. Unfortunately, Death is unavailable: He’s been kidnapped, and to get him back and prevent a worlds-spanning catastrophe, Fox, Vi, the ghost, and assorted other supernatural creatures will have to enter a high-stakes gambling game that usually only immortals can play…but rarely win. The story begins with an unusual blend of myth, fairy tale, and cosmology and inevitably descends to an almost unbearable level of sentimentality, which is simultaneously a refreshing change from Blake’s usual tableau of self-involved, selfish characters who seem driven toward tragedies of their own making. Blake could definitely do a better job at showing the love between characters rather than merely telling the reader that they’re in love. She also has an unfortunate tendency to skip potentially intriguing bits of backstory if they don’t immediately drive the plot along, which is why readers never learn anything about Fox’s childhood and what it was actually like having Death as a parent. Nor does she explain why only two of the four archangels, Gabriel and Raphael, play outsize roles in determining the order of the cosmos, while Uriel and Michael are nowhere to be seen. Bits of anachronism—like the use of a rubber band as aversion therapy 200 years ago or the presence of a magical wristwatch from a time long before watches were common—might be intended to be Pratchett-style humor or chalked up to magic? It’s hard to tell what’s intentional and what is simply careless. Now that Blake has a traditional publisher, perhaps the editors of her future novels will guide the author to address these issues when they arise.
A reasonably charming urban fantasy that could have used a more rigorous edit before primetime.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781250892461
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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