Readers willing to overlook the endless exposition may enjoy some diversity that's often missing in SF.
In this earnest space opera, an ensemble of badass women and nonbinary and queer characters fight corporate overlords on the semilawless planet Persephone.
A century ago, the Emissaries, hidden beings indigenous to Persephone, gave the gift of prolonged life to Rosie, a nonbinary cleric-colonizer, and Vissia, now head of the corporation that owns the planet. Despite and because of that gift, Vissia's bent on exploiting the Emissaries until nothing is left. Rosie, now a crime boss, enlists Angel, the expelled former student of an all-female martial arts academy, and her team of revivified United Republic of Worlds soldiers, to protect the Emissaries. Unless they can be convinced to reveal themselves and join the URW, making the corporate claim on Persephone void, the odds are not in their favor. With clear nods to Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, complete with an AI ship named Kurosawa, this has all the makings of a great SF adventure, but it doesn't have the depth to pull it off. With too many sluggish infodumps and a broad diversity checklist to hit regardless of authenticity, the narrative gets tangled and many threads get lost. So much so that a story trying to champion Indigenous autonomy makes "the benefits of assimilation" the final goal. Rosie, however, is a bright spot. Their gender-fluid nonbinariness is just one part of a delightfully complex, genuine, and amoral character who could make this novel worth your time.
Readers willing to overlook the endless exposition may enjoy some diversity that's often missing in SF.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1458-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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 laugh-out-loud “why choose?” romance of intergalactic proportions.
What’s worse: to be killed by a lion or dropped on a strange planet and forced into an alien breeding program?
Dorothy Valentine had a happy career in wildlife biology, studying meerkats in their native environment and living on her own terms. That is, until a hungry lion decided to make her into lunchmeat. Abducted from Earth at the moment of her death—along with the lion who attacked her—Dory becomes Subject 4 in an alien research project. The goal: to extend the life of the Sankado species, whose females were left behind on their dying home planet. With "a few modifications," Dory is a prime candidate for Sankado breeding…except for the secret birth control implant in her arm. To make matters more complicated, she hooks up with two Sankado men, Sol and Lok, while under the influence of an alien love serum, becoming their Zhali—a mate for life. Luckily, they don’t mind sharing Dory or one another. Just when their three-way honeymoon is about to kick off, however, Lok’s old enemy rears his ugly head, putting all of their lives in peril. Lemming’s characterization really shines here. Sassy Dory, sensitive and whip-smart Sol, and the dominant, flirtatious Lok all feel fully realized, as do Toto and Intern—the lion who tried to eat Dory and the birdlike alien responsible for observing her. The sex scenes are spicy, if perhaps too few and far between, and the dialogue is snappy and realistic.
A laugh-out-loud “why choose?” romance of intergalactic proportions.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593818633
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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