Blending grand-scale storytelling with deeply provocative social and spiritual themes, Lawrence could very well be the next...
The second installment of Lawrence’s Guardians series—following his debut novel The Guardians of Time (2011)—is equal parts epic science-fiction, time-travel adventure, historical-fiction drama and apocalyptic thriller.
With nothing short of the future of civilization at stake, agents from a time-traveling anti-terrorism group must go back into the past to stop an enemy organization determined to alter history—and thus the future—for its nefarious purposes. With dual storylines set largely in 2074 Monemvasia, Greece, “the Gibraltar of the East,” and early 19th-century Greece during the country’s war for independence against the Ottoman Empire, the high octane narrative is powered by an ensemble cast of well-developed, emotionally compelling characters such as Rashid Ibn Taleb Al-Noury, a young Moroccan who has joined the ranks of the Guardians as a Paladin to try and uncover what the Trustees are plotting in 1825 Greece; John Crowe, a ruthless, charismatic Trustee operative and former Paladin; and Mark Lawson, the time traveler from the future who brought with him that which could save humanity—and potentially destroy it. Although the science-fiction element is an obviously integral part of the storyline, much of the time it takes a backseat to the saga’s historical-fiction aspect. Lawrence excels at immersing the reader in 1825 Greece through vivid, thorough description and a clear knowledge of the area, its history and culture. Fans of elite alternate history sagas like S.M. Stirling’s Island in the Sea of Time trilogy, Robert Silverberg’s Roma Eterna and Eric Flint and David Drake’s Belisarius sequence will be more than satisfied with the meticulous historical detail, adept characterization and intricate plotlines of the Guardians saga.
Blending grand-scale storytelling with deeply provocative social and spiritual themes, Lawrence could very well be the next coming of Harry Turtledove.Pub Date: May 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983172116
Page Count: 371
Publisher: Pentelicus
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
