The Arrivals

May 13, 2013
One by one, several “criminals and cutthroats” are pulled from our world into the Wasteland, a mysterious universe that resembles the American Wild West. They have nothing in common except a murderous past, but they band together to battle an avaricious bad guy who exploits the local populace and tries to recruit new arrivals into his band of thugs. YA author Marr (the Wicked Lovely novels) has come up with an intriguing premise, but she never fleshes it out, making this more a promising outline than a novel. Assorted monsters and villains are scattered around, including sort-of vampires called “bloedzuigers,” kind-of dragons called “lindwurms,” and a shadowy group of “trigger-happy monks” whose role in the narrative is never clarified. Cowboy Jack and his sister, Kitty, are interesting leads, but the other characters never spring to life. Readers hoping for a Western spin on Riverworld will be sorely disappointed.

June 1, 2013
In this novel, Marr's alternative universe is the Wastelands, a place inhabitants believe is probably somewhere between life and death, where the forces of good are rapidly losing their struggle against the forces of evil. The last thing Chloe remembers is falling off the wagon. Now, she's waking up in a strange land that is so full of weirdness she's thinking just maybe she's hallucinating. The people here are varied: Kitty, the former saloon girl who can both fight and cast spells; Kitty's handsome, tough older brother, Jack, the leader of a small band of decent but flawed people who are resisting the temptation to give in to evil; Edgar, a former rumrunner from the Prohibition era who loves Kitty but understands she can't be boxed in; the strange and seemingly ditzy Melody, who is straight out of the 1950s; and Francis, a man who has done every drug imaginable and has ended up stranded, like everyone else, in the Wastelands. Chloe is the newest of the Arrivals, which is what newbies are called. Each time someone in the Wastelands dies, another one appears to take his or her place. Except, of course, when that person comes back to life, which is what happens some of the time. If an Arrival stays dead after six days, then they've moved on. Where, no one knows, but Jack sure hopes it's a better place, and, face it, just about anything is better than the Wastelands, an unforgiving countryside where strange animals roam and the people who band together to serve the evil Ajani are out to destroy or convert the Arrivals. Now, Jack and the other Arrivals have formed an allegiance with a creature known as Garuda to kill Ajani and make the Wastelands safe. But they find the final battle they face holds no easy answers. Marr creates an absorbing world that draws in readers, but the ending feels rushed and tacked onto what is otherwise an engrossing tale.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2013
Marr, creator of the best-selling, young adult Wicked Lovely fantasy series, ventures into dystopian fiction for grown-ups in this lassoing tale of survival and passion set in a desert beneath two moons. This is the Wasteland, where humans mysteriously appear. Each of the Arrivals is a killer. They do not age, they rarely die, and together they form a motley, moody band of frontier vigilantes. We meet a trigger-happy 1950s housewife, a gallant Prohibition bootlegger, and a hippie. They're kept in line by smart and focused Jack and his spell-casting sister, Kitty, who arrived from America's Wild West long ago. The heavily armed Arrivals fight off demons and dragonish beasts; break hearts; track their enigmatic enemy, the wealthy Ajani; and learn the ways of a twiggy, telepathic bloodsucker named Garuda. Then everything shifts when sexy Chloe arrives, fresh from a bar in 2010 Washington, D.C. Marr's sociopaths, romantics, and heroes are flinty and endearing; the spooky creatures, gunfights, mind-melds, lust, and love are diverting; and every facet of this clever, fun tale is stoked by peppery social commentary.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)