A hardware-light sci-fi kidnapping tale with a righteous cyborg army having mom and dad’s backs.
After an African nation develops advanced mental abilities, its leading citizens must thwart a mass hostage-taking by Iranian fanatics determined to learn the secret of the process.
Robin’s (Libator, 2013) sequel imagines a tiny country in late 21st-century Africa (bordering Somalia and Kenya) that—like the Marvel Comics imaginary sub-Saharan kingdom of Wakanda—has made astounding strides forward in technology. Specifically, the inhabitants of Libator can upgrade and advance human intelligence. With proper brain enhancement, the nation’s citizens fight as supersoldiers and/or communicate telepathically (and, to a limited extent, read the minds of ordinary mortals). With Libator’s secret revealed in the previous novel, the country is now eyed greedily by Iran. The Islamic revolutionary extremists (perhaps in the author’s mirroring of the Iran hostage crisis of the 1970s) kidnap 50 brain-enhanced but helpless Libator children, demanding that the nation’s doctors share medical secrets of the neural process in the name of Allah, or else. Despite the sci-fi trappings, most of the story hinges on spying and diplomatic negotiations—more skulduggery than visionary skull re-engineering. John Thompson and Stephanie Li, husband-and-wife characters from Libator, are now the parents of an abducted boy; they don “Persian” disguises for a coordinated, secret commando rescue operation behind enemy lines. At last, in the rousing final act, the drone-robot AIs and futuristic military weapons of plucky Libator come heavily and effectively into play. Almost nothing is uttered about the rest of the world’s political community of 2079 and its reaction to the augmented nation. Even allowing for the vagaries of a future setting, daily details of life under the theocratic, militant jackboot in Iran are flat and sketchy. Apart from the place names and the preponderance of bestial and rape-happy men who richly deserve to get their arrogant, religious/superstitious butts kicked, the marauders could well have been Klingons or Ruritanians.
A hardware-light sci-fi kidnapping tale with a righteous cyborg army having mom and dad’s backs.Pub Date: March 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4575-6193-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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