Like the future it depicts, gales of hot air make this dreary saga an oppressive experience.
Global warming brings environmental catastrophe–and relationship problems–in this sluggish sci-fi epic.
Toward the mid-21st century, climate change becomes apocalyptic. Drought and torrential rains cripple agriculture. Super-hurricanes ravage the East Coast every few weeks, killing tens of thousands each time, while the West Coast endures 150 mph “Pacific Screamer” winds and daily earthquakes. As Eurasia becomes overrun by warlords, America suffers under draconian Green Laws imposed by the despotic “New United Nations”–energy is strictly rationed, unauthorized motorists are shot on sight and miscreants are sentenced to turning giant hamster wheels at power plants. Mankind’s last hope comes when the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project contacts the alien Rostackmidarifians, who offer to establish a “safe location” for earthling elites. The lurid environmental cataclysms are but a backdrop to the many personal melodramas unfolding–Carlos, Earth’s Ambassador to the aliens, who avoids emotional intimacy ever since his mom cut off his toe; Roxanne, a seeing-eye dog trainer who despairs of Carlos’s ever loving her; SETI scientist Simon, who falls for Roxanne; and Simon’s boss Susan, who loves Carlos but is sleeping with her boss Quentin, a UN honcho who personifies humanity’s moral corruption. No eco-crisis is too pressing to distract these characters from droning on about their feelings for each other, or from tiresome bureaucratic intrigues and sophomoric debates about whether ends justify means. Gottlieb’s portentous prose (“[Carlos] knows humanity waited too long to address the horrors of climate change and feels he as well has waited too long to claim Susan’s heart”) devolves into trite surrealism (“a large fish sitting on a glossy red platter sings ‘Mammy;’ tapping out the tune with its tail”) during Carlos’s hallucinatory trip to the Rostackmidarifians’ planet. Buried deep in the bloated narrative is a garbled warning about the ecological and spiritual dangers of the godlike pursuit of scientific advancement.
Like the future it depicts, gales of hot air make this dreary saga an oppressive experience.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-9753655-0-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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