A series starter that trips across fantastic terrain with a human touch.
In this fantasy novel, a powerful magic wielder searches for his wife, who apparently left him for another man, as well as a villainous “voider” with similar powers.
Master Voider Democryos, nicknamed “Dem,” works out of the citadel for King Andrej X. He teaches talented pupils to use peach-pit–shaped voidstones, which allow one to see and manipulate matter in the “indivisible” realm (“Everything in our creation is built out of infinitesimal building blocks, called the indivisible”). One morning, Dem finds a letter from Lady Marine, his wife of five years, stating that their marriage is over. An investigation of her bedchamber reveals that she left in haste, likely with another man. Later, Dem and the king discuss the ongoing war with the Southern Kingdom. Andrej demands more voidstones and “voiders” with the skill to use them despite the scarcity of each. The king insists that a woman from his harem, Chimeline, must sleep with Dem. Instead, Chimeline and Dem go on a quest to find a hidden forest laboratory where Chimeline says that a mysterious voider conducted torturous experiments on her and other women. Also in the lab is an airship that’s designed to fly on principles that are known best to voiders. Dem and Chimeline take it south on a hunt for Marine and the rogue voider, little realizing that the voidstones’ true nature may change society forever. In this series opener, Wozniak (An Obliquity, 2017, etc.) straddles science fiction and fantasy while commendably exploring questions of spirituality. The effulgents, a religious sect who don’t believe in ownership or relationships, provide an energetic counterpoint to the materialism that’s thrown two kingdoms into war. Wozniak’s medieval world, as described, is a beautiful one; from the sky, it “looks like thousands of curved pieces of glass” covering everything “in blues and greens.” The book also wonderfully handles the notion of a preindustrial society discovering the atomic structure of nature. Yet the plot’s human elements—which include romance, drug addiction, and trust across philosophical lines—often shine brightest. Revelations and combat converge in the propulsive finale, and Wozniak’s strong imagination will rope fans in.
A series starter that trips across fantastic terrain with a human touch.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-44715-5
Page Count: 577
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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