The cover of Tobias Buckell’s CRYSTAL RAIN is exactly what I like to see on a fantasy novel: Swashbucklin’ dudes (one with a hook for a hand) hanging out on dirigibles and looking for action. That action is here, and so is a wildly freewheeling tale of invasion, amnesia and adventure that never slows down until the smash-bang end.
The story takes place on a vaguely Caribbean island nation … but not on Earth. The whys and wherefores are a bit more complicated than that, but Bucknell has quite a creation on his hands. As the warlike tribe from across the island starts a bloody march toward conquest, aliens, humans and some people in between have to find a way to harness the technology left behind by a long-forgotten apocalypse to restore the equilibrium of the island.
This is my idea of the perfect first novel. It doesn’t over-reach, yet the plotting and characters are meaty enough to feel like something other than an assignment for Novels 101. Bucknell weaves a tasty mix of Caribbean and Aztec culture into the brew, and the result is a great, great, great summer read that will keep you turning pages into the wee hours. –Ryun Patterson
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CRYSTAL RAIN sounds like a type of fruit-flavored water. Or a stripper’s name.
There fruity water or titties in this book?