An ambitious tale that doesn’t quite deliver.
A reissue of Clarke’s (Our Lady of the Ice, 2015, etc.) 2013 novel about the relationship between a roboticist’s daughter and the android she’s known since childhood.
Cat Novak is a little girl when her father brings a stranger named Finn home to act as her personal tutor. Despite her age, Cat knows that something is different about the new arrival, but her parents avoid her questions about him. At first, she draws her own conclusion from what she knows about Finn (he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t get cold or tired, his eyes shine silver in the dark) and thinks he’s a ghost. She cares for him anyway, even after he reveals the truth: he’s an android—the most advanced one to ever exist. As time passes, Finn continues to live in the Novak household, acting as her father’s lab assistant. Even though she knows he’s not human, Cat’s feelings for Finn deepen as she becomes an adult, leading her to question just how sentient he is: does he care for her? Can he care for her? When tragedy upends her life, she turns to Finn for consolation—a choice that sets them on a path that will alter both their lives in unexpected ways. Although this setup may sound like a girl-meets-robot romance novel, this love story is set in a firmly science-fictional setting. Much of Clarke’s worldbuilding has a very light and deft touch, putting the story in a near-future version of the United States as the world rebuilds after a series of environmental crises. But, at times, the detail is too scant—for instance, it’s never completely clear how many other androids there are or how exactly they differ from Finn in terms of appearance or self-awareness. The humans sometimes feel lacking in detail, as well: Cat makes some terrible decisions with her life, but when she finally becomes conscious of the inner conflicts that drove her to her bad choices, it feels forced and unnatural, resulting in a rather unsatisfying character arc.
An ambitious tale that doesn’t quite deliver.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7529-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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