An action-packed adventure, a wealth of historical and cultural minutiae, and an engaging protagonist.
A historical novel set during the period of Kamehameha the Great’s battles to consolidate the Hawaiian Islands stars a fierce yet tenderhearted young warrior determined to bring security to his family.
It is 1790, and 17-year-old Kalani Moku Tana has been sent by his mother to Kona to live with his Aunt Lei. Here he is to attend Kamehameha’s Pa lua, a military training academy. He faces daunting challenges. His mother warned him: “The men in the school are chiefs. Unlike them, you cannot show ancestry to the gods. For this you will be tested, humiliated. Be strong. You must survive the training and become a koa” (warrior). Kalani’s father, captured during a battle, was sacrificed to the War God Ku. Gruesome human sacrifice had been brought to Hawaii by the Tahitians, who conquered the original settlers near the end of the first millennium A.D. On his first day at the academy, Kalani makes one fast friend, Moki, and one very dangerous enemy, Hauna. Kalani becomes skilled in the use of the Hawaiians’ primitive weaponry—slingshots, spears, and shark-toothed clubs and daggers. He also becomes entangled in a risky romantic liaison that will cost him dearly. The capture of the Western schooner Fair American presents a new opportunity for Kalani: He learns how to handle muskets and cannons. In this rip-roaring tale, Bill Fernandez (Hawaiian Rebellions, 2018, etc.) has done his research. His narrative is rich in small details of island life before the impact of Western civilization, such as keeping track of time by counting heartbeats. The numerous battle scenes are graphic, bloody, and riveting. And there is endless intrigue, as the islands’ various higher and lower chiefs (there are so many of them that readers are likely to have difficulty keeping them all straight) forge fluid alliances based on current opportunities or the chance to settle old grievances. The author’s wife, Judith Fernandez (Hawaiian Rebellions, 2018), contributes helpful hand-drawn maps of the islands, black-and-white photographs, and sketches. In addition, there’s a valuable upfront glossary of Hawaiian terminology used throughout the text.
An action-packed adventure, a wealth of historical and cultural minutiae, and an engaging protagonist.Pub Date: April 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9990326-7-1
Page Count: 387
Publisher: Makani Kai Media
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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