by David A. Collier ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2018
A low-key tale of the future that’s somewhat didactic but generous in spirit.
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In Collier’s debut sci-fi novel, set in the mid-22nd century, a Kentucky farm family is changed forever when a strange object lands on their property, promising a solution to the urgent problem of climate change.
In 2147, advanced computers and robots do all the labor in the developed world, where many people receive an automatic wage stipend and the average human life span is 92.4 years. But the planet is also beset by disastrous climate change, which has caused oceans to engulf Florida as well as other low-lying territories and nations. Meanwhile, impoverished countries, such as India and Bangladesh, confront famine, flood, and refugees. One day, a softball-sized, glowing orb settles on the family farmstead of the Hickory family in Bourbon County, Kentucky. First police, then scientists and the military arrive to behold the miraculous visitor. After 8-year-old Jillian Hickory touches the orb, she’s not only cured of her cerebral palsy—she also becomes the orb’s voice. Through her, the entity states that humankind is doomed to a slow death due to the rising temperatures but that technology to limit and reverse the damage of high carbon-dioxide levels is available—if we can handle it. Meanwhile, media representatives and messianic-cult pilgrims invade the Hickory homestead; the latter are mostly Greco-Roman pagan Earth-spirit worshipers. Collier embeds a great deal of future forecasting in this straightforward, rather no-frills tale of benign first contact. The author’s narrative voice is instructive but never hectoring or alarmist about climate change, and it remains sure-footed throughout. That said, he often interrupts the flow for short sidebars on future technology, such as human-implanted cellphone devices. In the end, however, he ably achieves a blend of popular science, science fiction, and human-scale characterization, which the late Carl Sagan attempted with mixed results in 1985’s Contact.
A low-key tale of the future that’s somewhat didactic but generous in spirit.Pub Date: March 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9996857-0-9
Page Count: 261
Publisher: Service Management Institute
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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