A fungoid fecund novel that will leave dreamers mucky with the mildews that eat upon the dead.
Twelfth doorstop volume in Lumley’s already swollen vampire series (Necroscope: Invaders, 1999, etc.), with the next installment (Necroscope: Avengers) announced.
Here is a series hopelessly in need of a Necropedia: Footsteps of the Dead encyclical to help keep all the Wamphyri and their factotums straight amid the parallel universes of bloodsucker invaders and the varied vampire hunters tracking them down. The principals, the now dead but actually undead Necroscope Harry Keogh, and today’s Jake Cutter, are themselves composed of so many splintered figures, often evil, that even Lumley’s opening résumés, while reminding old readers of faded meteor arcs in the series’ overarching plotline, are of little help to the necronovice. Worse, Lumley’s densely dumbfounding résumés come in a spaghetti tangle of twisted grammar and seem typed under hypnosis or by autopilot on deep sedative. Yes, Harry Keogh’s dead, but he’s splintered into golden darts in other universes, although one dart has landed in the dreaming subconscious of Jake Cutter, a leading vampire killer with Britain’s supersecret E-Branch (ESP trackers of the dead). Jake has an added secret: Aside from having a revenant of Harry in him, he also houses a fragment of Korath Mindsthrall, an important vampire killed by Harry in Romania, whose knowledge allows Jake to travel through the Mobius Continuum and speak with the dead. Korath is infected by the powers of Malinari, Lord of the Wamphyri. And let’s not forget hideously beautiful Vavara, hag rival of Malinari, who eats wild honey and wolf hearts, and adds a sprinkle of lust to an otherwise entirely abstract though bloodthirsty thriller. Now, as if Wamphyri aren’t enough to deal with, Jake seeks the blood of Mafioso Luigi Castellano, whose mob killed his girlfriend and whose members are tied to an alien parallel dimension.
A fungoid fecund novel that will leave dreamers mucky with the mildews that eat upon the dead.Pub Date: May 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-87261-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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