An inventive work of alternate history.
A novel imagines a time jump that places World War II 100 years earlier.
It is 1942, and Jim Bridger Edwards—a former carnival performer and current captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—has been sent to Soviet-occupied Iran to shore up the Trans-Iranian Railway for military use. “I get my job done,” muses Jim (who harbors multiple personalities), “so the army doesn’t ask too many questions about how sane I am. And they let me play with high explosives.” His secretive Soviet hosts are trouble enough, but when the sun suddenly moves backward in the sky and people and vehicles—or parts of them—begin to disappear, Jim realizes he has much larger problems to deal with than an old railroad. An invisible, rubbery wall has descended across a whole section of the globe, plunging everything within its perimeter back to an earlier time period. Along with Mariya, a Russian woman of dubious loyalties, and Loki, a mysterious man with some knowledge of time travel, Jim must make his way through Europe to put a stop to the Nazi war machine. In this new reality, the United States is even more vulnerable than it was in the previous one. If Hitler’s armies reach North America, they won’t be met with the technology from 1942—but rather from 1842. Cozort (Wrath of Athena, 2016, etc.) writes in a breathless, accessible prose that gallops through the story with little pause. Although the sci-fi premise is rather complex, he unspools it with a directness and ease that rarely leaves the reader confused. The mix of time periods—with particular attention paid to the armaments of each—should please fans of military history, and the author’s imaginative blending of worlds will likely appeal to the broader speculative audience. Peripheral characters feel a bit flat, but Jim’s psychological state remains complex and compelling. The first book in a planned trilogy, it leaves off at a place that should assuredly hook readers for the next installment.
An inventive work of alternate history.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5451-1823-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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