by Buff Straw ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
A slow-paced but incredibly imaginative sci-fi achievement.
A debut sci-fi novel about life on an industrial planet.
Straw presents the bizarre tale of Horton Sphere, who was once a young man on Earth with a penchant for science fiction, an odd habit of composing haikus, and a job at a fast food restaurant. One day, however, he’s shocked to find himself in a very different place entirely. He suddenly materializes on a planet called “SUPEROIL” (an acronym for “Strategic Ultra Planetary Energy Reserves and Outlying Industrial Lithosphere”) where his human body has been replaced by frozen crude oil, his speech is now transmitted via radio frequencies, and the landscape around him is barren. It’s soon revealed that SUPEROIL is a planet made completely of petroleum. It lacks metals, oxygen, and culture of any kind, and other residents, like Horton, need not sleep, eat, or procreate. He’s shown around this dismal place by a girl named Gasoline Allie, who manages to get him a job on an oil rig. Horton doesn’t seem cut out for this work, but he makes the best of things while trying to puzzle out how he got to SUPEROIL in the first place, and if he’ll ever be able to go back home. Straw has clearly put of lot of thought into his worldbuilding, and he takes no shortcuts in explaining it all to readers. He details everything from the intricacies of Horton’s physical movements to the process of drilling for oil, both on Earth and on SUPEROIL. Such explanations consume pages and pages of text—and include a great deal of information about science and the history of Earth’s oil industry—but the payoff is an exceptionally unusual alien world. Even Horton, an avid reader of science fiction from “Asimov to Zelazny,” has never read about anything quite like this, and real-life readers are unlikely to forget it. That said, the abundant exposition slows the storyline to a crawl. It’s only in the final 100 pages of this roughly 600-page work that events finally pick up and a real sense of suspense takes hold. Nevertheless, even in the latter chapters, there remains much for readers to discover.
A slow-paced but incredibly imaginative sci-fi achievement.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-71813-511-6
Page Count: 618
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.