Readers will look forward to seeing how this imaginative cosmos unfolds in future installments.
Nanobots from another universe invade Earth–or did they create it?–in this engrossing kickoff to a sci-fi trilogy.
It’s 2147, humanity is recovering from nuclear war and devastating plagues, and the scientists at Australia’s University of Northern Territory confront new threats to the planet. Archaeobiologist Andrew Quatermas encounters one in the form of a stromatolite, a rock formation constructed billions of years ago by fossilized microorganisms. But these crystals are hardly moribund–when soaked in carbon or boron compounds, they start furiously synthesizing the chemical machinery of life. Studying them with his mass spectrometer and gamma-ray microscope, physicist Miklav Petrovsky detects unnatural elements and tiny structures that, he instantly surmises, add up to “a rocket between dimensions or universes” that “came from somewhere beyond the Planck limit.” A few days and a biocontainment breach later, the campus suddenly finds itself on the front lines of a conflict between two transgalactic civilizations–one is on a crusade to perfect the universe and abolish entropy, while the other is populated by artificial-intelligence systems that smoke too much and worry about keeping their jobs. This is hardcore science fiction, full of endless laboratory procedural and techie dialogue–“So, if electromagnetism were super-symmetric, the fermionic photinos would exactly cancel the photonic contribution and there would be no Casimir lasing”–that might mean something to a theoretical physicist but it’s difficult for the lay reader. It’s also got grand musings on the origin and fate of the universe and the meaning of existence, most memorably from the Church of the Unanswered Question, whose Sartrean prayer services include lines like “We believe in the profound irony of life” and “God is distant, remote and utterly alien.” Kelly sometimes overdoes it, but her writing is well-paced with gripping action scenes and touches of humor, and she gets enough of the science and Big Ideas across, despite the tech speak, to pique the reader’s interest.
Readers will look forward to seeing how this imaginative cosmos unfolds in future installments.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2008
ISBN: 978-1440440977
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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