By turns entertaining, poignant, and heady, a thoroughly enjoyable thrill ride powered by jolts of philosophy.
Through contact with interdimensional beings, a former Black Power activist releases a “thought-virus” that turns dogs wild and people into jackal-headed creatures resembling the ancient Egyptian god Anubis.
Edwards’ (The Dreams of Devils, 2012, etc.) second installment of the Nightscape series is a thinking man’s horror tale replete with associative memories, literary allusion, intellectual discourse, and references to Hegel, Plato, Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, Sartre, and Athanasius Kircher, to name a few. Unlike some run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypses, this well-written, multilayered tale has depth and complexity; when people transform into monsters, it feels more like Ionesco’s Rhinoceros than Night of the Living Dead. The narrative begins by introducing various groups of characters, from cops to gangsters, dogcatchers to street people, all crafted into empathetic personalities, each ultimately facing the catastrophe. Sick and dying, Gaston, aka “Mister,” spends much of his time in a dream state in which he claims to communicate with telepathic aliens from the Sirius star system. Though even Mister doubts his own sanity, he hopes to trick the aliens and use their powers for some kind of race revolution, a plan he discusses with Khonsu, a street person who dispenses cerebral books to various inhabitants of the inner city. Meanwhile, as Detroit descends into a seething hellscape à la Hieronymus Bosch and the military begins shooting everyone on sight via drones, a supersecret black ops team with extensive knowledge of alien and interdimensional goings-on is working to remedy the situation while other cognoscenti attempt to foil them. Ultimately, from all this confusion and mayhem, an unlikely hero emerges. Edwards is a master of character building, and as random people morph into beasts, those left behind tend to ponder their inner landscapes as much as their outrageous circumstances. The intriguing, sometimes-confusing highbrow discourse adds a shade of believability to the pseudo-scientific psychobabble used to explain the unfolding chaos.
By turns entertaining, poignant, and heady, a thoroughly enjoyable thrill ride powered by jolts of philosophy.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9897487-3-5
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Imperiad Entertainment
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
