Violent action and danger propel this supercharged military SF yarn.
In Maberry and Ochse’s SF novel, humanity, enslaved by a race of birdlike warriors, pins its hopes on a long-dormant squadron of supersoldiers.
Centuries from now, mankind wages war against the alien Flock, fearsome, saurian creatures (flightless but with vestigial wings and avian culture) wielding superior technology looted from other civilizations they defeated. After billions of casualties, the “birds” surrender when the more creative (and desperate) Homo sapiens invent Homo eximius, alias HE: “enhanced humans for military use...Special Forces players who had volunteered for physical upgrades.” Once seemingly unstoppable, the Flock suffers such grievous losses fighting these ultraviolent, lab-created beings that the aliens not only capitulate, but voluntarily become a subservient class, meekly living under human rule. The HE, unadaptable to peacetime, are put into cryogenic deepfreeze and hidden. It transpires that the Flock surrender was just a pretense by the disciplined and single-minded feathered enemy, granting them two centuries of opportunities to infiltrate and undermine Earth and its outposts. The Flock finally strikes in perfect coordination and overwhelms humanity—in short order, the humans become the Flock’s slaves. But waves of sabotage and terrorist attacks on the Flock increase, seemingly under the psychic influence of the long-dormant HEs. Lexie Chow, a historian and secret member of the resistance, joins a motley team of other rebels in a mad dash to locate the HEs and revive them to fight. A lot of dramatic dialogue, heated debates, and hypothetical ifs unfold in lengthy, unlikely intermissions in the furious battling depicted here (“You can’t dream in cryosleep. It’s impossible. Brain tissue, nerves, all of it is literally frozen,” a crew member notes. “Well, I’m open to alternate goddamn theories,” Lexie snaps). Readers will also have to stomach a cute little robot (Lexie’s electronic dog) and comic-book elements in this kickoff volume (which promises to initiate an even longer saga). Genre fans who stick with the sortie will be rewarded with crackling action, fiendish twists, and bigger-than-life characterizations in this undeniably rousing first installment.
Violent action and danger propel this supercharged military SF yarn.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 979-8212323123
Page Count: 630
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.
Some people are born supervillains, and others have supervillainy thrust upon them.
Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along with his uncle. With the aid of his uncle’s No. 1, Mathilda Morrison, and his cat, Hera (who turns out to be an intelligent and typing-capable spy for his uncle’s organization), Charlie must sort out whom he can trust before he gets blackmailed, blown up, or both. This book serves as a follow-up of sorts to Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) in that both are riffs on genre film tropes. The current work is fluffier and sillier than the previous novel and, indeed, many of Scalzi’s other books, although there is the occasional jab about governments being in bed with unscrupulous corporate enterprises or the ways in which people can profit from human suffering. This is one of many available stories about a good-hearted Everyman thrust into fantastical circumstances, struggling to survive as a fish out of water, and, while well executed for its type, the plot doesn’t go anywhere that will surprise you.
Fun while it lasts but not one of Scalzi’s stronger books.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780765389220
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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