A straightforward sci-fi story in an unorthodox but entertaining package.
In Woodward’s (Americanisation, 2011, etc.) sci-fi comedy, a New Orleans couple must prevent aliens from exterminating the human race.
College writing instructor Warren Avon spots what appears to be a “long, black acorn” while walking near his home. It’s actually a tiny spaceship containing Jerry and Phthsspitty-snapp, aliens from the planet Xxzzrrrva. The former is a scientist on his 29th planetary mission, and the latter, an intern on her first voyage. Their probe of Earth, which they call “Grawgraw-3,” is halted when Warren captures their ship, so Jerry initiates communication with the human. As he relates their mission, he takes the opportunity to ask Warren about Earth. Jerry finds out that petroleum is a valuable local fuel, and he’s sure that Xxzzrrrva’s Exploratory Board will destroy humanity to keep them from wasting it. The two aliens, along with Warren and his wife, Penny, devise a plan to stop Jerry’s superior, Councilor Hmmm, from authorizing mankind’s eradication. This isn’t an easy task, especially after Jerry inadvertently blows up an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The group also faces another seemingly impossible task—to somehow convince humans to use alternative fuel sources. Unusually, Woodward structures his entire novel as a “TERMS OF USE” agreement. However, this agreement also includes excerpts from a book (with Warren listed as its author) that advance the more traditional story in a chronological manner. This offbeat approach is frequently hilarious, as when the agreement includes an example of plagiarism that simply changes the characters’ names (“Jerry,” for instance, becomes “Larry”). Surprisingly, though, the agreement’s constant interruptions are never jarring. Although the short novel doesn’t delve deeply into its characters, they are distinctive; for example, Penny suffers from a mysterious ailment that results in conflicting diagnoses. The narrative also often provides memorable descriptions, as when Warren explains fishing boats to Jerry. The Terms of Use are more formal in tone but take comical turns; the agreement discourages loaning the book to others, offering “strategies for deflecting loan requests.”
A straightforward sci-fi story in an unorthodox but entertaining package.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9997862-4-6
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Spaceboy Books LLC
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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