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
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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