Heightened storytelling and characterization uplift a familiar spies-chase-superpowered-kid premise.
In this debut novel, a boy finds an ancient medallion that elevates his scientific knowledge to superhuman level—which makes him a quarry for ruthless American government agents.
In Shanahan’s SF thriller, the title character is a 10-year-old Virginia schoolboy who finds a miraculous artifact—actually an ancient Navajo medallion called the “Nílch’I”—in a stream bed. A prologue has informed readers that the object was stolen from the United States government at the end of World War II by a Rita Hayworth–lookalike, secretary Eleanor Cole, who was brutally gunned down during an escape attempt. But in 2020, the recovered artifact amps up Hollis Whittaker’s knowledge of math and science considerably—astronomically, in fact. When Hollis remaps the whole solar system and proves the long-theorized existence of a 10th planet beyond Pluto, the fifth grader becomes famous overnight, though all the slightly overweight boy can say about the matter is that it’s “cool.” When an antiques dealer posts an image of the medallion online for enthusiasts, she is summarily murdered. Hollis soon becomes the object of a nationwide hunt, along with his more outgoing best friend, Kirby Cooper-Quinn, and their mysterious but rather maladroit savior, a young Native American woman from New Mexico out of her element. Action periodically returns to the 1945 backstory of Eleanor and her #MeToo–type dealings with sleazy military brass (World War II Americans don’t exactly earn their “Greatest Generation” stripes here). Shanahan’s prose is on target throughout, carrying the pursuit-driven story forward as smooth as a bullet’s trajectory, although the mystique of the book’s MacGuffin medallion gets traded in for an explanation that is one of SF’s hoariest clichés. The denouement depends on a revelation of hitherto unknown superpowers that may signal a sequel. The voices of the young characters are especially convincing, with a nice touch that even with his augmented IQ, Hollis remains a firmly ordinary, unprepossessing boy whose reaction to most everything is pretty much “cool.” Even with the violence and swearing, this tale would still rate as YA material (pretty cool stuff, at that), albeit for a precociously cynical adolescent readership with no trust in government authorities except as killers.
Heightened storytelling and characterization uplift a familiar spies-chase-superpowered-kid premise. (author bio)Pub Date: June 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64599-046-8
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Encircle Publications, LLC
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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