A lighthearted, endearing sci-fi romp in need of some grammatical polish.
Santos’ sci-fi adventure stars a college student who learns that his dream girl is on a secret mission.
Nicholas attends the University of California in Los Angeles. Classmates call him Moon Boy because he loves all things cosmic (and because he’s so pale). He learns that a class on cosmology will be offered, and he eagerly attends. Making his life even more perfect is the arrival of Zara, a redheaded freshman who recently moved from the East Coast. Zara tells him, “You should not focus on space to fulfill your dreams....Sometimes the things we wish for can be right before our eyes.” While bike riding, Nicholas finds an abandoned countryside shack. It starts pouring, and he runs inside. Lucky for Nicholas, Zara shows up on her own bike. The girl’s beauty and scent of jasmine overwhelm Nicholas, and the two kiss. After they start dating, Zara reveals that she comes from the planet Life in the Andromeda Galaxy. He thinks she’s joking until he wakes up on her spaceship, the Science II. In this optimistic sci-fi journey, Santos (O Outro Lado, 2017, etc.) raises issues of eco-awareness while also exploring the idea of alien abduction. Zara and the crew of the Science II are actually time-traveling Earth descendants from the 641st century on a mission to save King Zador II’s 7-year-old daughter, Princess Isadora, whose rare viral disease may be cured with the help of Nicholas’ indomitable immune system (containing the rare Lymphocyte N sequence). While Santos’ aliens are determined and manipulative, they gain heart while dealing with Nicholas, a soulful Everyman who craves only love and knowledge. The author’s warning—that humanity may shed many failings except its penchant for politics—is valuable indeed. Despite some grammar hiccups (“Nicholas thought that Monday would be a tedious one...with nothing different to happen”), the narrative’s spirited pace ferries readers toward a satisfying ending while setting up a sequel.
A lighthearted, endearing sci-fi romp in need of some grammatical polish.Pub Date: July 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5214-3653-0
Page Count: 281
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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