THE CONSTANT MAN
science fiction and fantasy
Steiner, Peter Severn House (192 pp.) $28.99 | Jun. 1, 2021 978-0-7278-9074-0
A former police detective hunts a serial rapist in Nazi Germany. Now that he’s identified high-ranking Nazi official Otto Bruck as a serial murderer and rapist in The Good Cop (2019), Munich detective Willi Geismeier has been forced to leave his police job and his home. Still feeling responsible for finding the man who attacked Lola Zeff, he returns secretly to Munich, living under the alias Karl Juncker, to find him. As he does his best to lie low, rising Nazi aggression and internal turmoil repeatedly put Willi’s quest on the back burner. Steiner’s brief chapters create a tapestry of Germany under the rising influence of the Gestapo. Ambitious storm trooper Lt. Walter Kempf arrests fellow Nazi Ernst Röhm for being homosexual as part of a project called Operation Hummingbird. DS Hermann Gruber worries that his wife, Mitzi, is in danger because of her Jewish heritage. Storm trooper Heinz Schleiffer is surprised to find his adult son, Tomas, at a show of “degenerate art” put on by Joseph Goebbels and disturbed to learn that Tomas opposes the Nazis. The intellectual Reinhard Pabst is lukewarm about the Nazi cause but attracted by the power his allegiance to the Führer provides. Willi does have his allies: Lola is anxious for closure, and his landlady, Frau Schimmel, informs him of visitors who come looking for him. His investigation gains traction with the discovery of more victims. All too often, though, Steiner’s cursory attempts to provide a more complex depiction of Germany in this era distract attention from Willi’s pursuit of a serial killer. A brisk if uneven thriller peppered with historical detail about Nazi Germany.
MASTER ARTIFICER
Call, Justin T. Blackstone (300 pp.) $29.99 | May 4, 2021 978-1-982591-79-3
Choosing his own path could make him a hero. Or a monster. Annev is on the run. His village destroyed, he and a few friends are looking for a new place in the world. But Annev is being pursued by a monstrous assassin, and he has to find a way to remove the Hand of Keos, the prosthetic hand that once belonged to an evil god and is now attached to his own body. In the recent battle, this artifact released a torrent of flame that killed Annev’s old headmaster and burned the headmaster’s daughter, Myjun, whom he once loved. But the farther the group gets from home, the more complications they encounter in the wider world—slave traders, necromancers, magicians who worship ancient gods. Meanwhile, Annev has managed to make two new enemies, both determined to kill him: Kenton, a fellow student he burned with magical liquid, and Myjun, who’s now wearing a magical mask that feeds on pain. All the elements of a satisfying fantasy epic are here—a young hero pushed to the brink, ancient prophecies beginning to come true, rogues and thieves and mysterious women in cloaks—but the narrative gets bogged down in exposition at almost every turn. Characters are constantly explaining to each other how the complicated magic system works or what the political situation is. Annev’s goal keeps getting lost in the shuffle as multiple new characters are introduced, each with their own side quests to explore. Compelling themes and gripping fight scenes can’t save this fantasy from excessive focus on worldbuilding details.
THE FALL OF KOLI
Carey, M.R. Orbit (576 pp.) $16.99 paper | Mar. 23, 2021 978-0-316-45872-6 Carey concludes his post-apocalyptic Rampart trilogy, set in a future England ravaged by climate change and war. Koli Faceless and his companions— healer Ursala-from-Elsewhere; Cup; and the snarky, self-aware AI Monono Aware— have finally found the Sword of Albion. They’ve been following 46
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1 april 2021
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fiction
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kirkus.com
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