A vision quest–like eco-fantasy musing on the anguished conditions of modern Earth.
Earth is on the verge of being judged unworthy and devoured by alien entities in Tembruell’s SF thriller, the first in a series.
In a hell-world in the center of outer-space’s Dark Matter realm abide the Inani, batlike humanoids who inspired the infamous real-life West Virginia cryptid “Mothman.” They devour unpromising or nonessential planets to sustain themselves; Earth is on the menu, doomed by its detrimental, self-destructive apex species, the greedy and violent Homo sapiens. Earth actually had potential, as evidenced by the nature-centered culture and cosmology of North America’s Indigenous peoples, but they were extirpated by European invaders who were armed with bigotry, firepower, and religious fervor. Present-day humanity (manipulated by secret agents of Chaos) suffers under climate change and political discord. In midst of natural disasters and fascist militias, the state of Texas secedes to be become the brutal Lone Star Nation. (However, it still contains champions and “elementals” on Earth Mother’s side.) Arden McBride is a traumatized veteran of the United States’ invasion of Iraq. Now a born-again “Druid,” he serves as mystic protector of a handful of nature-loving Austin-based pagans running from conservative gun-nut death squads. Other heroes include Komkom “Kwin” Akwini, a talking tree (the mighty Kwin?), and STEM, an elemental spirit who became entangled in a new manmade “innerverse” (the internet) and struggles to comprehend a Donald Trump-era miasma of digital disinformation and hostility. But what of the Mothman? See next installment. This book is very much a stage-setting opener, drawing from the same author-illustrator’s earlier linked short-story compendium, Stories, Legends and Truths From the Blighted Earth (2023). A veritable cornucopia of anthropological musings and introspection accompanies the slight storyline, which is rich in abstruse language and word invention (“Chaos’s En’Troop-EE had invaded the Web with an ingeniously conceived and well-executed insurgency of hate, infiltrating all exchanged processes”) and short on positive things to say about Western civilization. Timely references to 21st-century pathologies distinguish the story from artifacts of the literary era when Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan did or didn’t walk the Earth.
A vision quest–like eco-fantasy musing on the anguished conditions of modern Earth.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798891323599
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.
Like a truck with no brakes speeding down a steep mountain road, Islington’s latest is an adrenaline-fueled SF thrill ride that follows a biomechanically enhanced assassin as he tries to understand his mysterious origins.
The chaotic opening scene gives readers a clear indication of what they’re in for: Contract killer Azure, attempting to complete a mission, is involved in a life-or-death battle with a multieyed biomachine called an Argos. “The thing’s bipedal but has six gorilla-like arms that end in half-metre-long claws,” he complains. After Azure barely dispatches the monster and kills his target, his AI assistant, Atti, informs him of his next job: protecting an elderly—and incredibly rich—woman living in a sprawling underground bunker in the middle of nowhere. “Old Woman,” as Azure calls her, isn’t forthcoming with personal details; all Azure can suss out is that she may be the target of a powerful organized crime syndicate—the same organization that employs him! Is Azure’s ultimate goal to save her or kill her? Although the worldbuilding could’ve been more comprehensive, Islington’s editing choices are brilliant—he strips away the insignificant narrative content to create a streamlined, action-packed adventure with seemingly one goal: to keep the reader furiously turning pages. The various mysteries—Azure’s murky beginnings, the tragic death of his best friend years earlier, Old Woman’s true identity, etc.—maintain the momentum and intensity. The takeaway here is the narrative potential of the characters as well as the plethora of subjects that could be explored more deeply, like immortality for the rich, cloning, and the potential to create bioengineered nightmares for “security.” Islington leaves the conclusion tantalizingly ambiguous. This novel could be the jumping-off point for a memorable series.
Buckle up—fans of page-turning SF may find themselves binge-reading this novel in one butt-numbing marathon session.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781668239247
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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