A colorful tale about colorful characters in colorful places and times. Vintage McCullough.
Back in her native Australia after her notable chronicles of the ancient Romans, McCullough depicts a brilliant man who has the golden touch in everything but his marriage.
In a big sweep that covers much of the globe during the late 1800s, McCullough (The October Horse, 2002, etc.) introduces Alexander Kinross and the woman, Elizabeth, he sends for and marries. A man who never knew his father, Alexander leaves Scotland as a teenager in the mid-1800s determined to prove the local bigots wrong about his abilities. He moves to England and studies engineering, then goes on to California, where, with his nose for gold, he makes a bundle in the Gold Rush. Next is Australia, where he discovers more gold and establishes Kinross, a model town. Now immensely rich, and the owner of a magnificent house, he sends for Elizabeth, last seen as a child in Scotland, to be his bride. At 16, Elizabeth is too frightened of her dour skinflint of a father to disobey his orders to leave for Australia, but from the moment she meets Alexander, she’s repelled. Nearly losing her life in the process, she bears him two daughters, brilliant Nell and brain-damaged Anna. Told that Elizabeth should not have more children, Alexander spends more time with Ruby, his mistress, the woman he really loves. Paradoxically, Ruby, a former madam and the mother of brilliant half-Chinese Lee, becomes Elizabeth’s best friend and helps her deal with adolescent Anna’s rape, the murder of Anna’s rapist by her Chinese nurse, and the birth of Anna’s child. Though Alexander becomes an international tycoon, Elizabeth remains unimpressed. Only Lee, a few years younger than she and back from studying in England, touches her heart. But Elizabeth still has much to endure before Alexander, a fundamentally generous man, realizes the unwitting harm he has done to her and makes spectacular, if tragic, amends.
A colorful tale about colorful characters in colorful places and times. Vintage McCullough.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-684-85330-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
Pub Date: April 7, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-52356-9
Page Count: 322
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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