Pike (Sati, 1990) leaves behind the young YA horror/suspense field to show what he can do with horror for adults and scores strongly—in a novel that covers many genres: suspense/fantasy/sf/horror. In 1996, the first unmanned space probe to land on Mars sent back sensational analyses (including secret pictures of huge footprints) before going dead. Four years later, the Russian crew of the manned Lenin loses contact in midmission. When the first American crew, which includes Dr. Lauren Wagner as medical officer, lands there in 2002, the mysteries expand rather than resolve, and author Pike hits top suspense with the American team discovering a Russian cosmonaut still alive in his bed in the orbiting Lenin, despite a freezing temperature in the ship. To be sure, he seemingly has no pulse and answers all questions with a fixed zombie grin that never wavers. When he leads the Americans below to comb the Martian surface by jeep and by foot, and then into a dark cave where they discover something very much like water, the reluctant reader begins shouting warnings. Meanwhile, back on earth, Lauren's sister, 13-year-old Jennifer, begins writing a fantasy tale about her life as the Princess Chaneen, a goddess among the Asurians, which somehow ties in with the vampires of Mars and for a while takes up alternate chapters with the sf/horror tale, though sf folks may not willingly accept the fantasy novel interwoven with the main text. Only Lauren and fellow astronaut Gary ``survive'' the Martian ordeal and return to earth where Jennifer has killed herself—or has she? At least she's been buried. But is the Princess Chaneen still around, to fight the vampire infection sent back to earth in the two astronauts called Lauren and Gary? Not without its ups and downs but, at its best, both riveting and a back-prickler.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-85115-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
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