An enthralling finish to a thoughtful, uplifting sci-fi series.
The finale to The Seekers trilogy finds Litwack’s (The Stuff of Stars, 2015, etc.) heroes returning to their home of Little Pond, hoping to wrest it from religious fanatics.
A fractured world suffers from spiritual and intellectual darkness. After avoiding war between two tribes across the sea, Orah and Nathaniel sail home to Little Pond. Their vessel is designed by the dreamers—whose minds have merged into a state beyond the physical—and carries more than 30 people, including Kara, mistress of the dreamers’ advanced technology, and Caleb, leader of the builders and warriors dedicated to living in harmony with nature. Also with the group is an “opaque black cube” with “bits of lightning flashing inside like a captive storm.” This device contains some of the disembodied dreamers, who will advise Kara and the seekers on how to handle the repressive Temple of Light. When Orah and her husband reach home, they find Nathaniel’s father a fugitive from the new regime, which denies individuals the freedom to think, feel, or even dress as the spirit craves. When they ask about their friend, the musician Thomas, they’re told, “He’s gone to a darker place.” To save him, the seekers marshal an army to march from Little Pond to Temple City, where the vicars are based. In this third installment, Litwack gives fans a plot both action-driven and cerebral. Though Caleb says, “no change comes without the shedding of blood,” Orah refuses to torture a captive deacon. Instead, they treat the man humanely, and he experiences the seekers’ philosophy firsthand. Portrayals of violence and its consequences will resonate with readers; after a battle, the living “suffered in silence, as if in sympathy with those silenced forever.” Litwack excels in poeticizing his themes with lines like, “If we are the stuff of stars, how can we act like beasts of the field?” All around, a superbly crafted adventure.
An enthralling finish to a thoughtful, uplifting sci-fi series.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62253-438-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Evolved Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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