An unusual thriller that’s more thoughtful than suspenseful.
In De Benedict’s debut novel, a brilliant executive faces a crisis of faith and morality that will affect the entire human race.
Adam Questor is the Nobel Prize–winning vice president of a global pharmaceutical corporation. After one of his top researchers, John Smite, commits suicide, he’s not only shocked by the death, but also left with a moral dilemma. Only days before, Smite showed him lab results that would change the course of human history if they were shared with the company or anyone else. Questor flees to the solitude and tranquility of a monastery to contemplate his options—and his lost faith. His domineering, unethical boss, Ralph Edwards, desperate to learn what Questor knows, sends in an attractive psychiatrist named Evelyn Wyman, as well as a pair of thugs to follow Questor’s every move and record his conversations. Later, an artificial intelligence program that holds the key to John’s incredible discovery begins contacting Questor directly. Soon, he has the answer to life’s greatest mystery and must rely on the help of Wyman and a resourceful monk to protect it from his boss. In this thriller with religious overtones, global conspiracies, and a man and woman on the run, De Benedict takes themes from novels like Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and crafts them into a more contemplative narrative. He swaps out those books’ puzzles and riddles for more complex philosophical debates, and readers who appreciate thought-provoking ideas over cheap thrills will welcome this new perspective. However, the exhaustive discussions also tend to slow down the story, replacing opportunities for suspense and tension with extended exposition and esoteric references. Instead of communicating with one another in a natural way, characters tend to deliver long, dense monologues that analyze problems or explain scientific, religious, or psychological points (“Before you go into your dissertation on how the Church ignored Duns Scotus in favor of Aquinas, would you just answer my simple question?”). Fortunately, Questor is a consistently intriguing character who’s admirable, reasonable, and complex, and his internal narrative provides a unique adventure.
An unusual thriller that’s more thoughtful than suspenseful.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1496969613
Page Count: 418
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
One of the more imaginative and ingenious additions to the dystopian canon.
Carey offers a post-apocalyptic tale set in England in a future when most humans are "empty houses where people used to live."
Sgt. Parks, Pvt. Gallagher, Miss Justineau and Dr. Caldwell flee an English military camp, a scientific site for the study of "hungries," zombielike creatures who feast on flesh, human or otherwise. These once-humans are essentially "fungal colonies animating human bodies." After junkers—anarchic survivalists—use hungries to breach the camp's elaborate wire fortifications, the four survivors head for Beacon, a giant refuge south of London where uninfected citizens have retreated over the past two decades, bringing along one of the study subjects, 10-year-old Melanie, a second-generation hungry. Like others of her generation, Melanie possesses superhuman strength and a superb intellect, and she can reason and communicate. Dr. Caldwell had planned to dissect Melanie's brain, but Miss Justineau thinks Melanie is capable of empathy and human interaction, which might make her a bridge between humans and hungries. Their philosophical dispute continues in parallel to a survival trek much like the one in McCarthy's On the Road. The four either kill or hide from junkers and hungries (which are animated by noise, movement and human odors). The characters are somewhat clichéd—Parks, rugged veteran with an empathetic core; Gallagher, rube private and perfect victim; Caldwell, coldhearted objectivist ever focused on prying open Melanie’s skull. It may be Melanie's role to lead second-generation hungries in a revival of civilization, which in this imaginative, ominous assessment of our world and its fate, offers cold comfort.
One of the more imaginative and ingenious additions to the dystopian canon.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-316-27815-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
PROFILES
Intermittently lumpy and self-indulgent, but enormously entertaining throughout. And the Gaiman faithful—as hungry for...
The West African spider-trickster god Anansi presides benignly over this ebullient partial sequel to Gaiman’s award-winning fantasy American Gods (2001).
In his earthly incarnation as agelessly spry “Mr. Nancy,” the god has died, been buried and mourned (in Florida), and has left (in England) an adult son called Fat Charlie—though he isn’t fat; he is in fact a former “boy who was half a god . . . broken into two by an old woman with a grudge.” His other “half” is Charlie’s hitherto unknown brother Spider, summoned via animistic magic, thereafter an affable quasi-double and provocateur who steals Charlie’s fiancé Rosie and stirs up trouble with Charlie’s blackhearted boss, “weasel”-like entrepeneur-embezzler Grahame Coats. These characters and several other part-human, part-animal ones mesh in dizzying comic intrigues that occur on two continents, in a primitive “place at the end of the world,” in dreams and on a conveniently remote, extradition-free Caribbean island. The key to Gaiman’s ingenious plot is the tale of how Spider (Anansi) tricked Tiger, gaining possession of the world’s vast web of stories and incurring the lasting wrath of a bloodthirsty mortal—perhaps immortal—enemy. Gaiman juggles several intersecting narratives expertly (though when speaking as omniscient narrator, he does tend to ramble), blithely echoing numerous creation myths and folklore motifs, Terry Southern’s antic farces, Evelyn Waugh’s comic contes cruel, and even—here and there—Muriel Spark’s whimsical supernaturalism. Everything comes together smashingly, in an extended dénouement that pits both brothers against all Tiger’s malevolent forms, resolves romantic complications satisfactorily and reasserts the power of stories and songs to represent, sustain and complete us. The result, though less dazzling than American Gods, is even more moving.
Intermittently lumpy and self-indulgent, but enormously entertaining throughout. And the Gaiman faithful—as hungry for stories as Tiger himself—will devour it gratefully.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-051518-X
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2005
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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