A clever extrapolation of today’s sociopolitical pathologies to the next century, with an uncommonly optimistic dose of...
In a future socialist America, Houstonians face the vicissitudes of life as a rising political/religious movement predicts the imminent return of a vanished scientist as a medical messiah.
Johnston labels his debut dystopian novel as “science fiction laced with political satire.” But in his deadpan tale, the biggest gag many readers will note is the author cheekily including himself in a future archives as one of sci-fi’s “old masters.” Otherwise, disillusionment with government and mistrust of the Establishment could come straight from today’s headlines and bloggers. America in 2135 is an economically troubled, socialist nanny state, intrusive, abusive, paranoid, and incompetent—whether it’s Democrats or Republicans operating “NatGov.” Some 50 years earlier, an enigmatic Mexican-born genius, Dar Lumbre, threatened the status quo of nationalized health care with his politics, sparking a warrant for his arrest. But he disappeared during the chaos after a providential solar flare erased the surveillance state’s digital records. Disciples since have prophesied Lumbre’s messianic return, bringing freedom and a formula for eternal life (thanks to Johnston’s med-tech savvy, the Jesus parallels are more intriguing than contrived and labored). In Houston, geneticists Crane Hopkins and Annie Lee study Lumbre’s own heirloom tissue samples, which hold amazing, restorative DNA applications that even NatGov allows (while it bans the scientist’s writings). But the sacred flesh is failing over time. Meanwhile, Crane’s freelance programmer brother becomes enmeshed in a Lumbre social movement (with cultish overtones) that may lead him astray, politically and in his fragile marriage. Hanging over the characters is the threat of NatGov’s wrath, but Johnston shies away from action-violence and simple black-and-white morality with a resolution more about science puzzles and societal problem-solving than chases or fights. Some may find the author’s conclusion almost too upbeat for the likes of NatGov. Others will enjoy that late in the ingenious narrative he embeds a shoutout to Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, which is pretty good company for Vonnegut as well as Johnston.
A clever extrapolation of today’s sociopolitical pathologies to the next century, with an uncommonly optimistic dose of medicine in the end.Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-08616-2
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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