Writer-editor Bova, having tackled Mars (1992), moves closer to home with this near-future family melodrama about nanotechnology and the exploitation of the Moon. When philandering Greg Masterson of Masterson Aerospace blows his brains out—it's revealed that he was dying of cancer—his wife Joanna marries her lover, Aerospace executive Paul Stavenger. But her unstable son, Greg II, mistakenly loyal to his rotten father, arranges to have Paul murdered on the Moon with Aerospace's experimental nanotechnology bugs. A horrified Joanna, already pregnant by Paul, bundles Greg off to a psychiatric clinic. In due course, Joanna gives birth to Doug. The years pass; Greg rejoins Aerospace and determines to close Moonbase, a loss-making but visionary and essential enterprise, the brainchild of Paul and now Doug. Inevitably, there will be a final reckoning between crazy Greg and honorable stargazer Paul, with poor Joanna's loyalties tested to the limit. Despite—or perhaps because of—the hokey family feud, little narrative momentum develops: an intermittently involving, elaborate stage-setter for Bova's projected volume two.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-380-97302-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
Although this sequel doesn’t break new ground, it will appeal strongly to fans of the first book.
More steampunk adventures of a samurai prognosticator, his clockwork octopus, and his human lovers.
Five years after her charming debut novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (2015), Pulley brings back the main characters for another scramble through the dangers and consequences of clairvoyance. Readers of the first book already know the big reveal: that Keita Mori—the eponymous London watchmaker—has an unusual memory that works both backward and forward. (Readers new to the series should put this book down and start with Watchmaker.) This time Pulley sets the action principally in Japan, where Mori; Thaniel Steepleton, a British translator and diplomat; Grace Carrow Matsumoto, a physicist; and Takiko Pepperharrow, a Kabuki actress and baroness, are working together to foil a samurai’s power grab and turn away a Russian invasion. At least, that’s what Mori’s doing; the others are rushing blindly down paths he’s laid out for them, which may or may not get them where he wants them to go. But if Mori knows what’s coming and what steps they can take to change the future, why doesn’t he just tell them what to do? The answer is half satisfying (because, as in any complicated relationship, communication isn’t always easy; because the characters have wills of their own and might not obey) and half irritating (because if he did, there wouldn’t be much of a story). Pulley’s witty writing and enthusiastically deployed steampunk motifs—clockwork, owls, a mechanical pet, Tesla-inspired electrical drama—enliven a plot that drags in the middle before rushing toward its explosive end. Perhaps more interesting than the plot are the relationships. The characters revolve through a complex pattern of marriages of passion and convenience, sometimes across and sometimes within genders and cultures, punctuated by jealousy and interesting questions about trust.
Although this sequel doesn’t break new ground, it will appeal strongly to fans of the first book.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63557-330-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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