Promising opener to a female-led series that doesn’t yet soar to incredible heights.
In this new edition of his first novel, Sutherland (The Last Dragoneer, 2014, etc.) creates a modern-feeling world before Noah’s flood, a world populated with dragons, warriors, and a determined young woman who fearlessly seeks her proper place in the world.
Eighteen-year-old Susah has long been able to sense the thoughts and feelings of animals, a gift that once keeps her and her young cousin out of the jaws of desperate wolves. She loves exploring her father’s garden, a forest where all types of animals gather and are protected by Noah, the ark builder. But she is also fascinated by Sethopolis, a city of millions, where people live in skyscrapers and drive hovercrafts. Her father disapproves of everything from that great city, so it’s a huge treat to be invited out to dinner there with her cousin’s family. But as much wonder as the city holds, it also hides dangers: half-ogres (hogres) roam the streets in gangs, and Lilith, a giantess, is determined to gain the secrets of Eden. When Lilith senses Susah’s growing power, she commands her minions to hunt Susah down and kill those with her. After the hogre pack kills Susah’s aunt and uncle, the night almost ends tragically for Susah and her cousins as well—until they receive a timely rescue from Dachux, head of the Dragoneers. From her first flight in a chariot pulled by dragons, Susah feels called to become a Dragoneer herself, despite her father’s wishes. After returning home, Susah runs away to join the military in hopes of getting into the Dragoneer Corps, but she gets further embroiled in Lilith’s plans—and becomes instrumental in keeping Lilith out of Eden. Sutherland creates an original vision of a corrupt antediluvian world, one that feels modern yet magical. The novel’s pacing, however, makes it difficult to dive into the story: for instance, it’s not clear until a few chapters in that chariots and skyscrapers coexist, and it’s nearly half the book before Susah follows her dream of becoming a Dragoneer. Susah’s training feels suitably militaristic, but it happens too quickly to be believable, despite some hand-waving explanatory logic from the narrative. And while Susah is well-developed, few of the other characters emerge as three-dimensional, with Lilith taking part in mustache-twirling-level dialogues.
Promising opener to a female-led series that doesn’t yet soar to incredible heights.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-937366-11-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Narrow Way Press LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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