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
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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