After a digression into sexual politics (The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five), Lessing's science-fiction cycle returns to the broad sociological preoccupations of Shikasta (1979)—in which we learned of the Canopean Empire's benevolent, triumphant, yet doomed experiments with primates on Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta. Now the focus is on the very un-benevolent experiments carried out by the Canopeans' rival Empire-builders—the Sirians, who control Shikasta's southern hemisphere. And Lessing's Sirian narrator is Ambien II, a crisply efficient bureaucrat/scientist who will gradually come to realize that the Sirians' obsessive, envious fears of Canopus are unfounded, that the Canopean guiding-principle of "Necessity" is valid, that the Canopeans are "altogether finer and higher." But before this awakening, Ambien II masterminds some dreadful experiments: the kidnapping of thousands of "Lombis" from Planet 24 for training as slaves (kept in a social vacuum to prevent upward mobility, this easygoing race becomes nervous and paranoid); pathetic stabs at simulating the miraculous Canopean rapid-evolution experiments; doomed attempts to alleviate the existential malaise of Sirians ("enfeebled by soft living") via Shikastan work camps. And this experimental era ends only when the entire planet falls under the disastrous influence of planet Shammat, evil incarnate; Sirius gives up on Shikasta completely. Canopus never loses interest, however, and millenia later, altruistic Klorathy of Canopus guides Ambien II back to Shikasta, now dotted with assorted cross-bred civilizations: Utopian Adalantaland, which vanishes beneath the sea when Shikasta suddenly tilts on its axis; the decadent city of Koshi, where Ambien II engages in a good-vs.-evil duel and begins doubting all her Sirian principles; the theocratic slave-state of Grakconkranplatl, where she's taken prisoner; the lovely democracy of Lelanos, which (like all good things, apparently) is doomed to fall away into despair. (Ambien II herself temporarily descends into "Shammat-nature" and leads the spoiling of Lelanos.) And finally, after joining Klorathy in a scheme to avert total Shammat devastation on Shikasta's moon, Ambien II starts denouncing her own Sirian government (a dictatorship in disguise) and winds up "under planet arrest". . . As narrative, Ambien's report is largely unsatisfying—episodic, shapeless, choppy. As a crammed forum of ideas, it's sometimes provocative, more often murky, with distracting, conflicting signals along the way (e.g., Canopus seems to be part Marxism, part God, part Britain). Still, the notion of intellectual awakening—a delicate transformation sometimes illuminated here with dazzling sharpness—is strong enough to pull the whole, challenging, disorganized piece together. Demanding and uningratiating, then, but—like previous Canopus volumes—worth the effort of readers attuned to the very biggest questions.
Pub Date: Jan. 5, 1980
ISBN: 0394751957
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1980
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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