Donald Maass Literary Agency

Locus Magazine: Susan R. Matthews’ Blood Enemies is the long-awaited conclusion to her Under Jurisdiction series.

Matthews remains fundamentally interested in the problem of atrocity: the nature of bad bargains and complicity; the cost of self-knowledge and the price of atonement. She remains, too, interested in exploring the nature of honour and loyalty, of right action and indeed of love in situations where people are pulled in multiple different directions.

Matthews’ characters have always been the biggest draw of her books for me. I find Andrej Kosciusko perhaps a little more compelling than any torturer really ought to be, and the other characters that populate this series are equally interesting. Matthews’ language is well chosen, and Blood Enemies rattles along towards its conclusion with admirable tension despite its scattered threads. It’s really gratifying to finally see how it all turns out.

Kirkus: Hoping to build on the dazzling triumph of her Eternal Sky fantasy trilogy (Steles of the Sky, etc.), Bear embarks on a new trilogy set in the same universe. The opening scene, in which a caravan heaves itself across the icy peaks of the Steles of the Sky, takes the narrative, literally and figuratively, out of familiar territory and into the Lotus Kingdoms, the contentious, broken shards of the once-mighty Alchemical Empire.

A panoramic drama that grabs and grips from Page 1 …captivatingly different …vivid, absorbing, and thrilling…stands head and shoulders above nearly everything else.

In an overcrowded field, [The Stone in The Skull] stands head and shoulders above nearly everything else.

New York Times: Long ago, as one character explains early in Nicky Drayden’s THE PREY OF GODS, the human race was fathered by a god who gave unique powers to each of his children. Though human beings have lost these abilities over the generations since, they remain present in mitochondrial DNA, latent except in a few rare individuals. And except in those humans whose latent DNA has been awakened — which a new street drug called godsend just happens to be able to do.

This is the mytho-scientific premise underlying a madcap, rapid-fire tale of South Africa in the year 2064, where a handful of individuals are suddenly plagued by godhood. One, Nomvula, is a lonely little township girl born with power. Several others acquire their abilities from godsend, to varying degrees of trauma or delight…As a genetically engineered virus spreads and threatens to awaken the latent godhood of billions, these few special individuals come together to decide, ultimately, what manner of gods will rule the future. Oh­ — and also, the technological apocalypse looms as personal robots all over the world quietly become self-aware.

Drayden’s delivery of all this is subtly poignant and slap-in-the-face deadpan – perfect for this novel-length thought exercise about what kinds of gods a cynical, self-absorbed postmodern society really deserves. Lots of fun.