Reviews
Publishers Weekly
At the start of this entertaining speculative novel of lost races
and time travelers from Roberson (Here, There and Everywhere),
cosmonaut Akilina "Leena" Chirikova, aboard Vostok 7 in Earth orbit,
enters a strange silvery gateway to a planet called Paragaea, where
a single giant continent and inland sea host dinosaurs and giant
sloths, as well as humans and such hybrid creatures as jaguar men,
snake men and bird men. Luckily, Leena meets fellow dimension-hopper
Hieronymus Bonaventure, a sailor from the Napoleonic era, and his
jaguar-man partner, Prince Balam. Together the trio set off across a
barbaric alternate Earth worthy of Edgar Rice Burroughs to find
someone who understands the dimensional portals so Leena can return
home. Roberson's style, in the best pulp manner, favors enthusiastic
exposition and travelogue with dashes of swashbuckling. His colorful
characters and setting transport readers to a simpler era when every
story offered new worlds to explore. (May)
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Rick Kleffel on Agony Column
"The result is the literary equivalent of a
haut-cuisine, health-food Twinkie. It's really smart, it's really
good for your brain and it's really fun to eat/read/consume.
Roberson gets to have his cake and eat it too, mind you. He gets to
write both fun-loving pulp and hard-science speculation. It's
definitely an everybody-wins situation.
"So here's what's really delectable about this novel. Beneath the
good-time pulp fiction plotting and exterior, readers will get the
thrill of discovering some meaty science fictional speculations.
Roberson has managed to offer us up a double-edged sword --
cutting-edge science with trailing-edge plotting."
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full review
Mike Resnick,
Hugo and Nebula Award-winning
author of
Kirinyaga and Starship: Mutiny
“Brings Edgar Rice Burroughs and
Alex Raymond into the 21st century. Paragaea is nothing less
than the great old pulp adventure stories, made new with the
considerable modern skills of Chris Roberson.”
