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. Enriched with entrancing details of life in the forest, graced with a neat pair of satisfying love stories, and culminating in a couple of rousing battles and a dramatic close when the king dispenses justice, McKinley's Robin should be delighting readers for years to come.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. Thus, her characters are idealistic Saxon guerrillas fighting invading Norman oppressors in the cause of justice include several highly competent women playing crucial roles and have a charmingly ironic 20th-century self-awareness-yet they also embody the perennial dream of escaping the flawed everyday world for a simple life and noble deeds in the company of well-loved companions.
After considerable research, the author has-like her predecessors-created a Robin Hood who reflects "what the teller and the audience needed him to be at the time of the telling" (McKinley's quote from J.C. McKinley's band is truly merry, casually undertaking deeds of derring-do while engaging in witty repartee that recalls the Three Musketeers.
Compressing elapsed time into a year and a half-from Robin's escape to the forest to the band's pardon by King Richard-McKinley includes many familiar characters and incidents (e.g., Robin's first meeting with Little John, the defeat of Guy of Gisbourne) while reshaping others (Marian, in disguise, is the one who outshoots competitors at the Nottingham Fair). White's reincarnation of King Arthur, a novel that brings Robin Hood and his men-and women-delightfully to life.
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