Equal-opportunity employer Brown’s warrior gals achieve near parity with the gents, and there’s a cute Persian princess. Oh,...
Techno-thriller specialist Brown, who never met a weapons system, real or imagined, he could resist, piles them on in spectacular quantity, pitting his Air Force hero Patrick McLanahan (Air Battle Force, 2003, etc.) against everything Iran can throw at him and his gadgets.
Those dumb bunnies in Congress. Will they ever learn that Lt. Gen. McLanahan, with his laser cannons, space fortresses, robots, drones, killer satellites and fuels of the future, always knows best how to handle the Dark Forces that threaten America. Alas, no. As usual, the knuckleheads in the capital and subversive members of the president’s own staff are looking for ways to throttle funding for McLanahan’s latest and most fabulous gizmo, “The Stud,” a sleek aircraft capable of easing itself into outer space and orbiting while toting enough payload to incinerate several missile sites and God knows how many armies of terrorists. Who wouldn’t want a fleet of such swell planes? Well, the usual dunderheads in the Pentagon—dinosaurs wedded to their old oxygen-breathing subsonic bombers and slow-as-molasses carrier task forces, systems that show up days late and dollars short against the ballistic threats wielded by the Ayatollah’s loyal armies—that’s who. And Iran is at the boil. There’s a disgraced former head of the defense forces stirring up enough trouble that the Islamic Republic could erupt in civil war, and it’s making the mullahs crazy. They’re ready to fire off their secret supply of missiles at targets all over Europe, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean to defend their insane dreams. Fortunately for the free world, McLanahan never takes no for an answer, even when it comes from the top, and before the Persians blow up the free world, McLanahan sends not only several Studs, but a handful of wonderful two-story-tall Tin Men—big, tough robots containing real live soldiers—to kick ass to Kingdom Qom.
Equal-opportunity employer Brown’s warrior gals achieve near parity with the gents, and there’s a cute Persian princess. Oh, and Russians.Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-117310-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
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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