A powerful bad guy with moral standards who’s well-rounded and highly entertaining.
In a world of superheroes acting as citizens’ protectors, Earth’s salvation from certain ruin may lie in the hands of a brilliant supervillain in this debut adventure.
When genius Terry Markham lost his little brother, Bobby, he adopted a superhero persona his sibling had created for him. But as his brother’s death was the indirect result of a superhero not interceding during a terrorist attack (to preserve his secret identity), Terry goes the villain route. As Doctor Fid, he dons powered-armor suits and habitually faces off against superheroes in the United States. His ultimate goal is to reveal to the public its heroes’ flaws, or maybe inspire someone to become a better mighty defender and legitimately earn the citizens’ unconditional trust and praise. Terry even believes a superhero orchestrated the senseless murder of a retired supervillain. Doctor Fid doesn’t belong to any of the numerous superhero/villain groups and encounters nefarious individuals from both sides. But there may be a common enemy with a diabolical plan to either conquer or destroy the world. Terry makes alliances with adversaries and, with help from an android girl, Whisper, sets out to combat Earth’s greatest threat, all in an effort to save citizens that fear and hate Doctor Fid. Reiss incorporates into his tale genre trademarks, like explosive hero/villain battles, that occasionally fall into familiar terrain (Fid’s myriad suit variations are akin to Iron Man’s). But more relatable subplots elevate the narrative: Terry steps into the role of big brother once again with Whisper, whose “Daddy” is missing; and someone attempts to oust him from the biotech company he founded. Similarly, the story humanizes the super-characters: Terry, for one, knows nearly everyone’s real name, despite successfully hiding his own. Nevertheless, dry, understated humor fills the pages. For example, Terry contemplates a new liver with “programmable functionality” to balance the alcohol/buzz ratio. And his combat drones expertly capture footage he leaks to the internet (specially edited to humiliate his superhero rivals).
A powerful bad guy with moral standards who’s well-rounded and highly entertaining.Pub Date: March 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-980530-21-3
Page Count: 369
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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