An engrossing SF tale that aptly solidifies a dense saga.
Teenagers with supernatural abilities band together in the face of threats in this second installment of a series.
Sixteen-year-old Adam Rozovsky is one of the Descendants, who boast paranormal abilities. Adam can control wind while his girlfriend, Carly Wit, manipulates fire. Unfortunately, the Iksha, a group of scientists seemingly intent on “harnessing” the Descendants’ traits, have been experimenting on and sometimes killing them. Adam, Carly, and other Descendants are currently hiding in the city of Piure. Sorceress Ksenyia Levkin tries to protect everyone by hexing the entire city to prevent enemies from entering. In some ways, the Descendants are quintessential teens, attending high school and eagerly anticipating the prom. But they must remain on guard, particularly after it’s apparent that a traitor among them is feeding information to the Iksha and, later, that a spy has somehow made it inside Piure. But perhaps most unnerving are the changes Carly notices in Adam. He exhibits unusual behavior that he subsequently forgets, leading Carly to speculate that his personality has split. Looking for a solution to her boyfriend’s condition, Carly stumbles on a shocking discovery that may mean the Descendants’ shielded city is not the safe haven they believe it to be. This SF sequel picks up right after the series opener, with a thoroughly established plot and myriad characters. Readers unfamiliar with the first volume may initially be confused, but Leigh-Reign’s (Opaque, 2016) crisp dialogue is simultaneously entertaining and brimming with details. Despite the Descendants’ powers and a blatant comparison to Marvel’s X-Men, the story offers minimal action, as the teens’ abilities are primarily on display during a tournament. Nevertheless, characters’ many interactions spark searing melodrama as well as suspense. There’s a lingering distrust, for example, with the presence of a potential mole while an eventual betrayal threatens more than one relationship. Moreover, the author adds a twist before the halfway point and another during the final act, which unquestionably sets up Book 3.
An engrossing SF tale that aptly solidifies a dense saga.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9979239-1-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Cayelle Publishing/Surge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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