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. Intended for a particular audience-nearly all the main characters are female, or homosexual, or both-and even though Marks is more concerned with the destiny of individuals than the fate of nations, the flimsy backdrop and far-fetched plotting doom this one to mediocrity.Īre 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. So can the combatants get together and find a solution that spares everybody, invaders and defenders alike, from slaughter or starvation? The outcome depends on whether Zanja can learn the truth of what happened the night Harald died. After initial success against the invaders, Emil's company suffers a string of devastating losses-another seer, Medric, guides the Sainnites. Norina Truthken, an air elemental who serves Mabin, has also sworn to protect Karis and thus becomes Zanja's rival. After swearing to protect and help Karis, Zanja joins former scholar and seer Emil Paladin's South Hill irregulars. The giant earth witch and smith, Karis, addicted to the will-sapping and sensation-destroying “smoke,” for some reason rouses herself to rescue and heal Zanja.

Captured and tortured, her back broken, Zanja languishes in a dungeon.

Next, the Sainnites slaughter the northern Ashawala'i tribe, leaving diplomat and seer Zanja as the sole survivor. Brutal Sainnite warriors have invaded peaceful Shaftal, whose G'deon (ruler), the earth witch Harald, died without conferring his powers upon a successor thus Harald's political rival, Mabin, must rally Shaftal's Paladins to fight a guerrilla war.

Hardcover debut, and first after a long silence, from the author of such paperback fantasies as Dancing Jack (1993), etc.

Fire logic by laurie j marks