A massive, thoughtful sci-fi saga, weighty in more ways than one but rewarding.
In this two-novel sci-fi saga, selectively bred human/animal genetic hybrids plot to break free of their surveillance and exploitation.
Wozniak (The Gardener of Nahi, 2013, etc.) previously published this dense saga in separate volumes, The Perihelion and An Obliquity. The first finishes at a high point; the second picks up moments later. Gene-spliced together, they constitute a 700-plus-page epic spanning mainly one catastrophic day in early 2069. Medical science has experimented with blended human/animal DNA, yielding a few boons (a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease) but mainly generating a handful of much-feared, genetically modified hybrids incorrectly called 99ers—for 99 percent human. (Readers are told that “an average 99er would have to have twenty times more animal genes in their DNA” to be truly considered “99% human.”) Like the android replicants of Philip K. Dick, these mutants are close to Homo sapiens but harbor personality/physiological disorders in addition to the traits making them valuable in espionage and dangerous dirty work. But society regards the hybrids as nonhuman, to be tightly regulated and constantly monitored. Gavivi, a snoopy “hummingbird”—not a hybrid but a freelance video reporter wet-wired into an airborne spy minicam—senses an international scheme to kill all the badly flawed “leopard” 99ers and wants to expose the conspiracy for fortune and fame. Meanwhile, Aspen, gifted with radiation-resilient wasp DNA, plots an escape for herself and fellow hybrids, even if an entire city must fall to a weapon of mass destruction. Formerly Chicago, the endangered city is now a high-tech “Bluecore 1C” metropolis in a disunited America, where wealthy, elitist liberals live. The more rural, working-class, socially conservative folks reside in the “Redlands.” Longtime bestseller readers may experience déjà vu and recall James Clavell’s supersized,non–sci-fi Noble House as Wozniak’s diverse, well-drawn characters—ranging from a trendy but fraudulent photographer to a Roman Catholic priest once forcibly conscripted as an African child soldier—are swept into the 99er-pocalypse. The author’s richly detailed canvas explores religion, redemption, aesthetics, parenthood, relationships, and (naturally) the meaning of being human. If his big-ideas reach sometimes exceeds his grasp, there are still more solid thematic hits than misses here. In a few peculiar asides, the actual land itself comments on the action and what God wants, and it’s impressive that even this risky gambit works as well as it does.
A massive, thoughtful sci-fi saga, weighty in more ways than one but rewarding.Pub Date: June 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72033-063-9
Page Count: 748
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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