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Killing Mickey

Name: Killing Mickey
Author: Charlie Rehor
ISBN: 978-1-5330-3688-9

DEAD RATS TELL NO TALES

by Charlie Rehor ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2016

A satire with hilarious leaps of imagination and a solid core of societal engagement.

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Rehor’s debut is a gonzo sci-fi comedy about a near-future world of corporate stranglehold where a programmer trying to escape his past may threaten the future.

When readers first meet Billy Glover, he’s pointing a gun at his dad—and his week only goes downhill from there. That near-patricide turns out to be Billy’s memory, and remembrances of his late dad’s abuse still haunt him in real life. (For example, his dad once gave him a “reverse surprise birthday party,” in which he was promised a celebration but instead ended up raking leaves.) Billy hasn’t fallen far from the tree, though: whereas his dad first worked in psyops for the government during World War II and then developed a new character for Disney, Billy is working on an entertainment system that will allow people to experience real or synthetic memories—the iRemember. He needs the job, as his other options include grim “work camps” for the unemployed or the prospect of joining the terrorist Linux Underground. But when he starts finding copies of one of his childhood drawings around the office, he realizes that he may have more to worry about—including a possibly malfunctioning artificial intelligence. This plot description might make the novel sound like a taut techno-thriller, but Rehor manages something even more impressive here: a hilarious, satirical look at the modern world that deftly balances ridiculous events with some exploration of Billy’s character. Billy may be surrounded by networked appliances—even the coffee maker has a limited AI—but that fact merely emphasizes his sincere isolation, and he remains engaging no matter what’s going on in the near-surreal world around him. There’s a faintly Philip K. Dick-ian sense of paranoiac uncertainty mixed in with Billy’s struggles, but there’s still a lot of laughs as well.

A satire with hilarious leaps of imagination and a solid core of societal engagement.

Pub Date: May 19, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5330-3688-9

Page Count: 206

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.