Library Journal: Fans of unusual colony fiction such as Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden will enjoy the slightly surreal alien world Newman (Between Two Thorns) creates. Whereas many hard sf novels would wallow in the nature of the aliens and the process of getting to the planet, the real draw here is the character of Ren and the cost that keeping the colony’s secrets has on her mental health. Decades after landing on an alien planet, the colonists who live at the foot of the jungle structure they call God’s city maintain a yearly ritual. Only Mack, their leader, and engineer Ren know that this ritual is a sham. The colonists had followed the dream of the woman they call the Pathfinder, who was exposed to a spore while hiking with Ren and received a vision that drew her into spaceflight and to the alien planet. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, and now years later the stress of maintaining both this myth and the secret of what really happened at Planetfall will culminate in conflict.
Nov 162015
Boing Boing: Christopher really gets to grips with the constraints of Ray’s short term memory and the social implications of the mob-destruction of all the robots (save one), telling a story that’s gripping, funny, deadly and suspenseful.
RT Book Reviews: Remarkable Harrison pulls out all the stops for this amazing new novel. This is a fantastic tale of friendship, love, loyalty and sacrifice that you won’t soon forget. Make sure you have a Kleenex nearby, for sometimes tragedy and loss are unavoidable. Without question, Harrison should be an auto-buy!
Daily Mail: One of the most compelling things about the fantasy genre is the sense it gives of other realities existing a mere hair’s breadth from our own – its practitioners constructing not only plots but entire worlds in which for them to unfold.
School Library Journal: Henry’s life is complicated. His previous boyfriend committed suicide without warning or explanation. His jerk brother’s girlfriend is pregnant. His nana has Alzheimer’s. And his new boyfriend refuses to acknowledge their relationship, instead humiliating and attacking him publicly. Henry is also haunted by questions about why his father left and if Henry himself is culpable. This is all further complicated by the fact that he is regularly abducted by aliens who drop him off naked in various locations throughout the city. The aliens offer Henry the opportunity to save the world from obliteration by simply pressing a red button. The catch? Henry isn’t so sure it’s worth saving. Hutchinson’s voice rings true. This work effectively combines the best of elements of Nick Burd’s The Vast Fields of Ordinary (Dial, 2009) with hints of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. VERDICT Angst-loving teens will devour this lengthy tome, yearning to see if Henry can consummate a new romance. Highly recommended.
Kirkus: “Don’t forget, it was their choice to get involved in this war”: Fantasian Bennett builds another world, convincingly, in which empires rise and fall and blood flows. Bennett clearly has fun doing all the scene-setting and complicating that his tale involves, and while in the end this is a warning against the totalitarian impulse, it makes all kinds of detours into the dark hearts of men—and women, too. Sometimes too talky but r