![]() 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.Ī tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Ī tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children. ![]() 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. 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. 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. 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. ![]() 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. If you've read Otherland why not share your thoughts.Are we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. I've been surprised by how much I'm enjoying City of Golden Shadow and am even more surprised that I haven't even thought of reading it before but when you start a sub for an author it's probably smart to know more than one series of their books. any more would be spoilery, so follow the link to read the rest. The big reveals are brilliant, especially. It was also kind of nice to have a couple that I liked without actively shipping, if that makes sense. Renie is a likeable protagonist and !Xabbu manages not to be irritating despite being a stereotypical “wise savage” character, and they normally annoy the crap out of me. Paul Jonas is a beautifully-drawn hero, quiet and ordinary but unbelievably admirable when it counts, and his amnesia mystery manages to stretch through four massive books without feeling forced.ĭread is a genuinely terrifying villain and some of the images from his reign of terror, especially in the Dodge City simulation, are probably going to give me nightmares for the rest of my life. ![]() I still prefer the fantasy stuff, but oh my word. I’ve read his stuff before and loved it, notably Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, which is home to two of my all time favourite characters (Count Eolair and Aditu), but I don’t often read sci-fi so I wasn’t expecting to like this series quite so much. Just finished Tad Williams’ Otherland series.
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