An engaging read for fans of Utopian sci-fi, but limp characters and tensionless conflict limit its appeal.
Lavers' debut novel opens as an alien collective, known as the Bearing, contacts elderly Australian Peter Wilson.
These otherworldly philanthropists have a proposition. They’ll reconstruct Peter’s body and grant him access to a technological wonderland known as the Habitat. In exchange, Peter will become the overseer, the Bearing’s human avatar, and direct humanity through the potentially world-sundering days of the 21st century. Peter accepts and, with the help of an advanced form of artificial intelligence named Sheila, establishes the Institute to begin solving Earth’s crises. Terms like “ferrous solution” and “rapid electrolytic corrosion” abound, and Campbell-ian–era sci-fi fans may enjoy the solutions Peter and Sheila conjure for planet-wide emergencies. As with other futuristic Utopian novels, this one includes political musings. Unfortunately, while the novel engages on the world stage, the same can’t be said for the day to day of the characters’ lives. In one telling scene, Institute representative Anita flies over war-torn Cairo to tour its “pinched and starved” citizens, the “bodies lying on the side of the street,” and the bombed-out city blocks. It’s just one scene of many where the characters fly—literally and metaphorically—over the world’s problems, never confronting them beyond the confines of a window or television screen. When they do encounter personal conflicts, either money or a wave of the science wand resolves the problem, and Peter’s brief bouts of stress always disappear in the Habitat’s technological Eden. As a result, dramatic tension flags, and the characters become little more than figureheads commentating on world issues at all manner of meetings, conferences and political soirees—replacing the novel’s heart with the humanity of a boardroom.
An engaging read for fans of Utopian sci-fi, but limp characters and tensionless conflict limit its appeal.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2012
ISBN: 978-1479227747
Page Count: 272
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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