A promising compilation from a new talent.
A fantastic collection of sci-fi/fantasy flash fiction.
Liang’s debut offers a fascinating, often chilling look into an alternate universe. In “Run,” Gov. John Mayyor oversees a prison known as Section 7A in Illuva Forest. Known as the last stop for criminals, Section 7A is where murderers are separated from civil society and left to their own devices. The convicts must fend for themselves, using force if needed but knowing that everyone else can do the same. “Lazarus,” on the other hand, is less a story and more a disturbing description of a seductive, august city that is in fact “a test tube, an open laboratory for the military to work the kinks out of a new system of government—a system no one saw coming.” Lazarus captures a dystopian world of Benefactors, rulers who strive to create a utopia by expunging the imperfect from the universe. In “The Forest,” a more narrative-heavy tale, a group of artificially designed wolves forage for food and try to protect themselves while a man at a computer tries to control them. The lines between computer, animal, and human get blurred in this haunting example of how machines can rule and destroy our lives. “A Bad Wish”—which begins: “I say there are three kinds of people in this world. There’s the givers, the takers, and the ‘meh’ers”—traces the life of John Doe and his encounter with Xanthix, a genie who claims he can grant Joe three wishes. But when Xanthix gets to choose the wishes, the story takes an ugly turn. Brimming with imagination, the stories present unique, frequently insightful looks at the future of human experience. Not only are these mostly brief sci-fi/fantasy pieces smartly written and entertaining, they usually present a moral message, too. Young readers in particular will appreciate these fresh, easy-to-read stories while reveling in the challenges offered in their weighty content.
A promising compilation from a new talent.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-51-531572-8
Page Count: 132
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Clarke (Al Capsella and the Watchdogs, 1991) strews this dark comedy with caricatured adults and older Melbourne teenagers clinging to adolescence. After another Saturday night making the club scene, Jasper (who is 19 and a brick salesman by day) stumbles home, losing his mate Vinny somewhere along the way. He assumes Vinny will show up, but he’s wrong; Vinny is not at any of his friends’ homes, doesn’t pick up his car from Jasper, and doesn’t show up for his job at the car wash on Sunday. An anxious hunt begins. Using at least ten points of view, plus a variety of ominous dreams, nameless feelings of dread, and the like, Clarke creates a patchy, faintly suspenseful tale in which the cast’s love lives, private yearnings, and apprehension at the looming prospect of adulthood share the front seat with the central mystery. Yet neither the satire nor the cautionary message are delivered with any particular zing. Readers may have dismissed the entire episode by the time Vinny reappears late Sunday night, groggy but unharmed, having blithely accepted a ride and a spiked drink from a seemingly inoffensive stranger, and woken up on a train with no memory of the past 12 hours. (glossary) (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-6152-5
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
Setting the story in the early 1950s, Hamilton has penned a slow-moving but ultimately touching character study about a boy learning to love his new stepfather. Dal Wilkins is 11 and really can’t remember his father, a soldier killed in WWII. His mother has married a jovial, kind man whom Dal calls “Mr. Sabatini.” Dal accompanies Mr. Sabatini on a trip to Idaho; expecting to find the Wild West, Dal instead spends his summer in a tiny, sleepy town. He works in bean fields, goes to barbecues, works up an attraction to Patty Puckett, goes swimming, and spends some strained days with the Dunns, a family of farmers whom Patty ridicules. Patty’s ne’er-do-well father, Len, claims to own a uranium mine, however, and Mr. Sabatini decides to invest. When Mr. Sabatini is bitten by a rattlesnake on a trip to the mine, Dal must summon the same courage his own father and Mr. Sabatini drew upon during the war. He drives to town through the nearly roadless desert, saves his stepfather’s life, and finds that he has a family stronger in love than that found in the Dunn or Puckett brood. This beautifully crafted book, long on plot, feeling, and suspense, features protagonists that are drawn with realism and depth. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16814-0
Page Count: 154
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
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