Lotus Blue

By Cat Sparks

“Forget the Mad Max comparisons: Sparks is far more ambitious than that. Lotus Blue is A Canticle for Leibowitz by way of Neuromancer.” —Peter Watts, Hugo and Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of Blindsight

Seventeen-year-old Star and her sister Nene are orphans, part of a thirteen-wagon caravan of nomadic traders living hard lives travelling the Sand Road. Their route cuts through a particularly dangerous and unforgiving section of the Dead Red Heart, a war-ravaged desert landscape plagued by rogue semi-sentient machinery and other monsters from a bygone age.

But when the caravan witnesses a relic-Angel satellite unexpectedly crash to Earth, a chain of events begins that sends Star on a journey far away from the life she once knew. Shanghaied upon the sandship Dogwatch, she is forced to cross the Obsidian Sea by Quarrel, an ancient Templar supersoldier. Eventually shipwrecked, Star will have no choice but to place her trust in both thieves and priestesses while coming to terms with the grim reality of her past—and the horror of her unfolding destiny—as the terrible secret her sister had been desperate to protect her from begins to unravel.

Meanwhile, something old and powerful has woken in the desert. A Lotus Blue, deadliest of all the ancient war machines. A warrior with plans of its own, far more significant than a fallen Angel. Plans that do not include the survival of humanity.

“Imaginative and richly rendered . . . Recommended for people who crave fresh post-apocalypse chaos—because Sparks’s post-apocalyptic chaos is pretty fresh, at that.” —N. K. Jemisin, The New York Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781940456737

Cat Sparks

Cat Sparks is a multi-award-winning Australian author, editor, and artist whose former employment has included: media monitor, political and archaeological photographer, graphic designer and manager of Agog! Press amongst other (much less interesting) things. She’s currently fiction editor of Cosmos Magazine while simultaneously grappling with a PhD on YA climate fiction.

Reviews for Lotus Blue

[crtsjffrsn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't enter this book with specific expectations, but it just didn't get there for me. There are a TON of characters, a number of whom aren't clearly introduced or described, which made for some very confusing moments where I had to stop and backtrack. The story itself wasn't particularly compelling for me either. I think there is an audience for this book; I just wasn't part of it.

[This review is based on an advanced review copy received from the publisher via Edelweiss.]

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The author claims inspiration from Dune, and indeed we spend the entirety of the 3x too long journey in blistering dust, but really this is an unrelieved journey to Mordor, though unknown until the end to most of the travelers. And there are more Saurons out there. The writing is good enough to keep going through uninteresting characters, often improbable actions, all the plot bolts and gears clearly outlined, nothing hidden or inscrutable here.