Rating: 8/10

Synopsis

20 Climbers. 20 Watchers. 5 Hunters. 1 Colossus.

After both their parents die during the live broadcast of the Tournament of the Colossus, Quinne promises to always keep Benn safe. Even from the deadly Hunters who scour the slums for those who can wield magic. But when Benn’s rare ability manifests during a public confrontation, the Hunters see them for what they truly are: riveting contestants.

Quinne will be a Climber, where she’ll be chased by Hunters and mechanized monstrosities through a trapped forest before attempting to climb a thousand-foot-tall destructive god. And Benn will be her Watcher, as his consciousness will be transferred into nothing more than a glorified camera in the form of a metal bird.

The odds of survival are low, the likelihood of death and blood great. Tune in today, for this Tournament will be a ratings juggernaut!

Review

This is a standalone that packs a punch – terrible pun intended. Death Show Colossus is set in a dystopian world in which brutal Hunters capture the magically gifted and throw them into a Hunger Games-style contest for public entertainment. The contest features as its central point the Colossus mentioned in the title – namely, a thousand-foot-tall monstrosity that the contestants have to climb in order to achieve victory. All while dodging Hunters, mechanical monsters, and each other. It’s a grim setup with high stakes built in from the get-go, and while our protagonists start out trying to do everything they can to avoid being thrown into this contest… well, it’s probably obvious from the blurb that things don’t go as planned for them.

Our two heroes are Quinne and Benn, survival siblings who couldn’t be more different from one another. Quinne is fierce, foul-mouthed and generally a force to be reckoned with, but her main goal is to protect her softer and more empathetic brother Benn. Unfortunately, Benn’s rare gift paints a target on their heads and they soon find themselves captured for the purpose of dying for public entertainment. Not only is their bond front and centre but it instantly raises the stakes of this already edge-of-your-seat setup in which there’s a real danger of neither of them making it through alive. Benn is the clear underdog and it’s hard not to root for him as he’s trapped into the form of a metal bird – a Watcher – to help his sister Quinne in her role of Climber as she crosses this deadly landscape to climb the great Colossus. Quinne’s over-the-top ferocity might have made her a hard character to like if not for her devotion to her sibling, but again, she’s a product of the brutal world they have to survive in. We also get the perspective of Vera, one of the major players behind the scenes, whose sinister reasoning adds an extra layer of depth to the world without taking away from the fact that this is, in the end, a regime that captures its citizens and forces them into public death contests that are broadcast to the nation.

The action pretty much doesn’t let up. This is one of those books where you swear you’re just going to read one more chapter and the next thing you know, two hours have disappeared. The propulsive nature of the story means that it’s hard to put down, and the obstacles the characters face feel fresh enough that it doesn’t get tiresome to be flung from one conflict into the next. The world meshes cyberpunk-esque technology with a creative magic system in which users manifest different abilities that make for some seriously fun and entertaining battle sequences. At the same time, the author never loses touch with the brutal underpinnings of the contest and the violence is underlaid with themes of oppression, rebellion and autonomy.

There are obvious comparisons to other dystopian titles to make from the premise and setup, but Death Show Colossus manages to do its own thing, blending cyberpunk, dystopian and fantasy elements into an addictive story that packs some serious weight within its tight page count. The plot barely stops to breathe but there’s so much heart in there, too, with the bond between the main characters and the underlying themes adding a layer of depth beneath the high-octane entertainment. Honestly, I had a blast with this, and I’ll certainly be checking out Adams’s other work in the future!