Galloping, hugely detailed scientific/paranormal/spiritual SF superdrama that deserves a wide audience of warped but...
Awake, Manicheans! And read the Mayan prophecies whose ancient Good-versus-Evil glyphs, deciphered by the late Julius Gabriel (Domain, 2001), foretell Earth’s destruction in 2012. It’s now 2013.
Julius’s son Michael had hoped to forestall the Alien Armageddon—they had planted a deadly weapon the Gulf of Mexico—by enlisting the aid of psychologist Dominique Vazquez, who is part Mayan. The pair attacked Dad’s bad old partner Pierre Borgia, who rose to US secretary of state. But at base it’s Michael against the Apocalypse. Though now dead, he has led humanity past the 2012 horror of fusion blasts that destroyed much of Australia and Asia. His twin sons live in Dominique, who is pinpointed for death by Christian fundamentalist and presidential candidate Peter Mabus. The sons, when born, have posthuman genes. All-knowing, inhumanly strong Jacob is white-haired with azure eyes. Dark-haired Immanuel desires a more human, more normal life than Jacob’s. As it happens, both sons must join to perform the title’s resurrection of Michael. Is he really dead? Dominique is told by psychiatrist Evelyn Strongin, who returned to life after being killed by a wayward electrical line, that Michael, shackled to purgatory by his anger, is being tortured by poltergeists called Nephilim. Their negative force will be directed into the post-human genes allotted to schizophrenic Lilith, born the same day as the twins but in uglier circumstances. What it all comes down to is: Will the portal to hell will be opened and Lucifer resurrected? Or will Immanuel, Jacob, and Dominique be strong enough to stop abominable Lilith and her nasty but pure post-human son Devlin Mabus and keep the evil door shut . . . on a silvery-red planet . . . among seven-foot-tall humanoids . . . ?
Galloping, hugely detailed scientific/paranormal/spiritual SF superdrama that deserves a wide audience of warped but delighted readers.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-87558-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2003
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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
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