A thoroughly entertaining adventure with imaginative action and an appealing hero.
A human rebel leads a desperate attempt against alien overlords in Taylor’s debut SF novel.
In 2067, World War III laid waste to Earth’s ecosystem, and in 2084, extraterrestrials called the Xirfell conquered the planet. Now, in 2094, the Xirfell’s King Hebdith and his minions, including alien creatures gathered from other worlds, impose despotic rule on the surviving earthlings. Despite the aliens’ vast advantage in numbers and assets, a scrappy human resistance movement has organized itself. Thirty-year-old half-Anglo, half-Indigenous Aiden Tenten has been part of the rebellion since his days attending Australasian Academy, where he was recruited for three major qualities: “an outstanding brain, a stubborn spirit, and a determination to make a difference,” and also because of—or despite—his reckless confidence and craving for the spotlight. When an unknown source disclosed his affair with Ravene, the king’s half-human, half-Xirfell daughter, Aiden was expelled from the academy. Since then, he’s been a successful rebel operative, but he’s apparently been betrayed again. As he languishes in prison with a death sentence, the Xirfell question and torture him; the seductive Ravene even conducts one of the interrogation sessions. Nevertheless, he manages, with help from allies, to embarrass the regime by foiling the public execution of Leelack, a breathtaking mermaidlike creature who managed to infiltrate the Xirfell’s high council. Aiden also escapes and is tapped for a crucial mission in which he must disguise himself as an enormous alien enforcer, get close to the king, and assassinate him. He won’t have to do it alone, but the odds are against his little team—and the betrayer in the resistance is still at large.
Over the course of this novel, Taylor tempers his bleak, post-apocalyptic fictional world with Aiden’s energetic narration and darkly comic humor, as when Aiden, in his alien disguise, finds himself seduced again by the unwitting Ravene: “But, before you write me off as the feeblest—if possibly the sexiest—operative in rebel history,” he says, “I was also hatching a back-up plan.” The overall tone of the narrative recalls Nick Harkaway’s novel The Gone-Away World (2008), but it does so without ever feeling derivative. The action scenes are excitingly unpredictable, and they also have an emotional element, as brave, goodhearted characters face mortal danger from truly cruel and evil beings. Similarly, Taylor handles Aiden’s growth toward humble self-knowledge in a moving and believable manner; as self-centered as he’s been, he’s also been taking care to note the examples of others who’ve found true greatness—“that kernel deep inside, that immortal core” whose recognition “can merge, from all our separate selves, into the person we are meant to be.” His later mission gives him the chance to move past his restless desire for fame and become his truer self. The book is also a standout for its inventive array of alien species; for example, Pavlina Dafina Evangelija, a tiny and fuzzy “gromeline,” is an intelligent and fearless creature who provides essential help for the rebels’ mission.
A thoroughly entertaining adventure with imaginative action and an appealing hero.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-78965-097-6
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Unbound
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.
The first installment of Liu’s Julia Z saga is an SF thriller set in a near-future “post-truth age” where the use of AI and the inundation of digital disinformation and data pollution have blurred the lines between delusion and reality.
Julia—whose immigrant mother, a divisive political activist, was murdered during a border protest—has lived on her own since she was 14. A brilliant hacker now 23, she’s been trying to live in online anonymity, acutely aware of the multitude of ways she can be identified and tracked. Living in a Boston suburb and struggling to make ends meet, she inadvertently becomes entangled with a lawyer named Piers Neri and his search for his artist wife, Elli Krantz—famous for her experimental work in vivid dreaming—who may or may not have been kidnapped. A prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance, Piers goes on the run with the help of Julia—and together, they begin putting together pieces of a mind-bogglingly intricate puzzle that links Elli to a powerful criminal with a global reach. As Julia digs deeper into the appeal of vivid dreaming and the criminal’s ruthless endeavors, she discovers the sham that is the American Dream: “America was corrupt and steeped in sin. The powerful had rigged the game for themselves and turned the country into a panopticon to imprison the rest of us. Anytime one of the powerless—it didn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you spoke, the place you were born in—was on the verge of climbing out, they would be ruthlessly tossed back into the pit.” And amid the backdrop of dealing with unresolved childhood trauma and the need to find her place in the world, she finds something unexpected—herself.
Equal parts biting social commentary and page-turning thriller, a disturbing glimpse into humankind’s possible future.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781668083178
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.
Having survived a disastrous deep space mission in 2038, three asteroid miners plan a return to their abandoned ship to save two colleagues who were left behind.
Though bankrolled through a crooked money laundering scheme, their original project promised to put in place a program to reduce the CO2 levels on Earth, ease global warming, and pave the way for the future. The rescue mission, itself unsanctioned, doesn't have a much better chance of succeeding. All manner of technical mishaps, unplanned-for dangers, and cutthroat competition for the precious resources from the asteroid await the three miners. One of them has cancer. The international community opposes the mission, with China, Russia, and the United States sending questionable "observers" to the new space station that gets built north of the moon for the expedition. And then there is Space Titan Jack Macy, a rogue billionaire threatening to grab the riches. (As one character says, "It's a free universe.") Suarez's basic story is a good one, with tense moments, cool robot surrogates, and virtual reality visions. But too much of the novel consists of long, sometimes bloated stretches of technical description, discussions of newfangled financing for "off-world" projects, and at least one unneeded backstory. So little actually happens that fixing the station's faulty plumbing becomes a significant plot point. For those who want to know everything about "silicon photovoltaics" and "orthostatic intolerance," Suarez's latest SF saga will be right up their alley. But for those itching for less talk and more action, the book's many pages of setup become wearing.
An ambitious but plodding space odyssey.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18363-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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