A promising launch to a visionary space-empire series with multicultural insight.
Sci-fi author Winnie’s debut describes the origin of the vast, galaxy-spanning Terran Empire and the 31st-century ascent of a Mongolian prince who defends Earth and lays the groundwork for an immortal dynasty.
America didn’t last much past the 23rd century. In the 31st, Mongolia is a dominant world power, and spacefaring humans have defeated one alien invasion, earning respect and fear among the alien Galactic Council. Angkor is a reluctant heir to the neo-Mongol throne, preferring his scientific research and idyllic, monogamous marriage to a commoner. But the machinations of politics demand that he not only succeed his father as the planet’s benevolent despot, but also revive the ancient god-king title of “Khan”—a sign that humanity plans to expand its territory outward to the stars. Angkor contends not only with deadly alien enemies planning to contain him, but also treachery on Earth. A framing story informs readers that the Terran Empire will eventually spread throughout the universe, its original rulers becoming legendary, godlike figures, and this installment explains how that all came to be, with Buddhist underpinnings to Angkor’s audacious scheme to genetically forge a far-reaching line of imperial descendants. This is an impressive inception volume in a prospective saga, considering its ambitions, and it makes a good move right out of the gate by drawing from the rich well of Asian culture and values. Occasionally the narrative takes a dizzying, great leap forward over cosmic victories and wars that slaughter millions, and some foes become friends (and vice versa) in the rapid span of a few pages. But while similar contributions to the fantasy/sci-fi realm spend too many pages setting up rules and characters who may only come to the fore much later on, Winnie offers plenty of action and a firm enough finale that readers may enjoy this book as a stand-alone work. In Angkor, the story has a nuanced hero who, like the storied Genghis Khan, can seem enlightened and brilliant yet also perpetuate barbaric deeds that associate him with ruthless conquest.
A promising launch to a visionary space-empire series with multicultural insight.Pub Date: May 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5466-4193-3
Page Count: 364
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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