Book Four of Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" following With a Tangled Skein (1985). Young, stammering Hindu prince Mym is cheated of his love, the beautiful Orb, by paternal manipulation; he falls for princess Rapture but is balked of her too; so, offered the opportunity to become Mars, the immortal Incarnation of War, he accepts—and at once Satan begins to tempt him. Mym is offered a beautiful concubine, the Satanic construct Lila, but rejects her; Lila tells Mym where he might find a suitable, mortal companion, the beautiful Ligeia—but it's all part of a Satanic plot to trap Mym in Hell while Satan stirs up all sorts of bellicose problems on Earth. Mym, accordingly, threatens to allow Armageddon to occur on Earth unless Satan desists; and, since there is currently more good than evil on Earth, God would win His contest with Satan—so Satan backs off. A technically solid installment, then, creamy-smooth and agreeable if more than a trifle bland.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0345322215
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
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
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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