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. Intense and captivating a pitch-perfect ending for a strong trilogy.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. As appearance is easily and routinely altered via technology, the diversity focus is firmly on classism. Nuanced social commentary and philosophical musings give thematic weight to a story grounded in a passionate, tragically antagonistic relationship. The intrigue- and betrayal-packed plot never feels like twists for the sake of twists because character decisions are rooted in their complex, often contradictory, emotions. In doing so, they uncover some of the empire’s deepest secrets.

But, unable to go along with Tyrus’ cruelty, Nemesis and Anguish must leverage every connection they have to enable Tyrus’ opponents to take him down. As “Nemesis lives” has been taken up as a rallying cry by those opposing the tyrant, she loses anonymity and returns to Tyrus, who finds he misses her, in exchange for medical care for Anguish. Meanwhile, Nemesis, left by Neveni after Nemesis botched an assassination attempt on Tyrus, lives in hiding in a desolate mining colony with the only other surviving Diabolic, Anguish, who’s dying. Rather than a traditional start (either a recap or where the previous left off), the book opens with Tyrus’ boyhood, when he makes a personally painful decision for the greater good, with ramifications that set him on the path that finds him, 15 years later, a mad tyrant declared to be a God-Emperor. After narrowly surviving The Empress (2017), Nemesis is pulled back into imperial intrigue to stop a madman.

The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid