A complex work that offers an intense look at a possible future.
An ambitious SF novel about climate change and technology addiction.
In 2039 Japan, Yoshi Goto is starting a new job as a shopping mall Santa Claus. Two years ago, he was the lead in the highly anticipated film One Man Dreaming, but he was so difficult to work with that the Santa gig is the only one he can get to prove that he’s reliable. After accidentally knocking down a child and crashing the sleigh into a Christmas tree, Yoshi is not only fired on the spot—he’s also facing a potential lawsuit. As he walks home in the rain, a driverless “smart car” pulls alongside him with an automated message telling him that the CEO of Maya Technologies, Tyler Gray, wants to meet with him. Gray is going to use his new technology, the Maya Lenz, to create an immersive virtual environment where people can relive their favorite parts of movies, enjoy role-playing games, and more. One of the main features of the new Maya District is that it will feature the main character from One Man Dreaming. All Yoshi has to do is spend a few weeks acting like his character, so that Maya’s computers can learn how to be like him. But as Yoshi explores the outside world with and without his new Lenz, he discovers that there’s more to the city, and the people in it, than he ever imagined. Lutz (Amanojaku, 2016, etc.) has created a compelling future world that’s not very much unlike our own. The effects of climate change, for example, are shown to be very real, causing massive changes to Japan’s coastlines, and its citizens are clearly hiding behind technology to escape this terrible reality. The only way in which the book falls a bit flat is in how it focuses on the worldbuilding—and on cool new gadgets—to such an extent that it takes too long to get to the heart of the story. At times, so much is thrown at readers that it may be difficult for them to care enough about particular characters or plot points that prove important later.
A complex work that offers an intense look at a possible future.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9946275-5-1
Page Count: 466
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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