An impressive sci-fi tale despite some peculiar twists and retro turns.
In the mid-21st century, three orphans land on a Nevada base that pits amazingly advanced technologies and spy networks against the threat of a new world war.
The world of 2040 is not a safe place to be in Fleming’s debut sci-fi novel. Nations scheme against one another ruthlessly; oil reserves are running out; and in a struggling U.S. economy, orphanages are an easy way for the unscrupulous to make money, practically selling children. In one of these “asylums” in Las Vegas live three exceptional kids. Mykl is only 5 years old but is secretly a genius with problem-solving skills beyond most adults. Ditto for muscular teen James, who hides behind a slow-witted demeanor. Both are protectors of Dawn, a beautiful, iron-willed blind girl, so they conceal their gifts to remain in the harrowing environment. But—after a ghastly ordeal—the three are detected, recruited, and transported to a clandestine, subterranean desert facility (though named the City, it’s obviously inspired by Area 51 legends). There, Above-Top-Secret Cmdr. Jack Smith shows the orphans astounding new technologies: cold-fusion energy, faster-than-light communication, innovative space travel, longevity-producing DNA, and other miracles that could advance humanity. But, Jack says, revealing these wonders would trigger all-out war and attacks by greedy, rival nations—especially China—which are planning an apocalypse to weaken the U.S. for conquest. Jessica Stafford, a college graduate of extraordinary moral character, is another of Jack’s hires, and she and James visit the Vegas casinos—filled with assassins—to play a dangerous game against the Chinese. Just how perilous it is unravels in the avalanche of closing chapters that take an already over-the-top premise way further than most readers would expect. Despite the presence of children and young adults as key protagonists, it would be wrong to label this tale YA, though it carries the gee-whiz enthusiasm of golden age sci-fi (where clever gadgetry was usually the solution, not the problem, and Fu Manchu types like those found here grated somewhat less in the stereotype department). But the giddiness is tempered with gruesome violence and a grim verdict on what it might actually cost to bring forth a utopia of benevolent technocrats. The author’s remarkable storytelling skills make the novel a proper page-turner, although some elements (a lengthy subplot about a serial killer in particular) don’t quite gel with the others.
An impressive sci-fi tale despite some peculiar twists and retro turns.Pub Date: July 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973769-64-4
Page Count: 498
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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
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
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