An intriguing science fiction adventure with a message that becomes heavy-handed at times.
In LaMora’s didactic science fiction thriller, an aimless peace officer on a mission to rescue two children from a war-torn planet finds himself on a journey of personal transformation.
When a sentient badger tasks Hayes MacGruder and his partner Murphy to find and return two girls living on a world that has been ravaged by war and recently deemed uninhabitable, all Hayes wants is to finish the mission as soon as possible and leave the polluted, rat-infested planet and its roaming bands of cannibals far behind. But when he learns that one of the girls is actually his daughter from a past life (he was a bank robber in the Old West), he realizes that this fateful meeting with his progeny from a previous life—as well as other members of his “spirit cluster”—is actually the universe giving him yet another chance to rewrite his story by making the right decisions in his life. But little does he comprehend that the fate of every living thing in the universe may very well depend on the choices he makes. As the story progresses, it becomes increasingly metaphorical (Hayes and company must find a diamond that contains “the Story of the Universe” and return it to its rightful place), and not only does character development fall to the wayside but the narrative verges on proselytizing. Although the profoundly powerful message of the novel—the implications of living an unprincipled life—is communicated effectively through diary entries that a senator’s daughter wrote in 2006, that thematic potency is diluted when the author inserts numerous moralizing diatribes that not only affect the book’s narrative flow but take focus off of the characters and their story.
An intriguing science fiction adventure with a message that becomes heavy-handed at times.Pub Date: March 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983106708
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Jeanne D'Arce
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2011
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
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