An engaging Armageddon space adventure with an angelic young hero; a religious course correction ultimately enters from the...
As an all-devouring menace approaches the solar system, Earth’s hope for survival rests on a dangerous mission that one brave pilot must undertake.
In Levin’s (Rue, 2015, etc.) sci-fi novel, a “phase transition” in space is sweeping across the universe, moving faster than the speed of light and annihilating every particle in its path. Advanced extraterrestrial civilizations fall before the catastrophe, their technology useless to escape. Earth scientists calculate the devastation is 11 months away from their planet and brainstorm a long-shot solution; a warhead carrying a special heavy-element payload striking the disaster at just the right point of impact could stop it. But steering the delivery vehicle through intense radiation will make it a virtual suicide mission for any pilot. Despite the apocalyptic threat, humanity finds few volunteers among the astronaut elite. But in Houston, a controversial experimental program has set up a school where children with Down syndrome receive genetic treatments to restore impaired brain function. For patient Bobby Alderson, the cure means he rapidly develops a 196 IQ with incredibly accelerated math/science abilities—coupled with the innate goodness and eagerness to please supposedly typical of Down kids. Bobby has the right stuff in many ways, but will the miracle boy be sacrificed among the stars to save the universe? Fortunately—or not, depending on whether readers desire their “Flowers for Algernon” pathos served straight up or watered down—the author throws in some super-science twists to be merciful to saintly, personable Bobby when things take flight in the third act. Eventually, a strong religious angle comes into play, with disclosures of the phase transition’s true nature. While the message is not linked to the book of Revelation, evangelical-minded readers should approve. Levin offers a fast-paced narrative not weighed down by a slablike page count, despite galaxy-spanning scale and the gravitas of an ultimate-doom epic. But even with the overall brevity, there are asteroid fields of STEM-heavy passages (“Bright points blurred while others disappeared as gravitational lensing distorted cosmic optics. Phase Craft Two began to vibrate. Its antigravity engines hurtled the spaceship along a tangent Bobby had calculated to escape the star’s deadly radiation and avoid empyrean bodies within three light years”). The author wisely navigates these portions via crosscuts to the hand-wringing on Earth.
An engaging Armageddon space adventure with an angelic young hero; a religious course correction ultimately enters from the wings.Pub Date: July 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73383-510-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2019
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
