A fast-paced, gloriously intricate introduction to a potential epic.
A 17-year-old girl and a 22-year-old man get caught up in a conflict between godlike beings that’s been raging for eons in Ashton’s debut mythic fantasy.
The worst part of hospital intern Fiona Megan “Fi” Patterson’s date with guitarist co-worker Zeke Prisco isn’t his awkward rejection of sex, but the fact that he witnesses her epileptic seizure, her first episode in years. (She’s a troubled girl, in general; her mom died a decade prior and she never knew her father.) Her seizure results in her having a dream of a baby, which she sees again in a vision when her regular patient Peter becomes atypically responsive. Then a group led by a man named Kleron arrives at the hospital to see Peter, and they embark on a murderous rampage when asked to show identification. Fi, Zeke, and Peter make it out alive and eventually get help from Fi’s uncle and guardian, Edgar. They soon learn that people known as the Firstborn have been around for millions of years, split into two rival bands. The Asura, who long ago opposed a being called Father, have launched a global attack against their enemies—Father’s warriors, the Deva. Fi and Zeke each discover special abilities as they struggle to survive harrowing battles with evil beasts bent on human domination—or annihilation. This novel, the first of a series, is dense with back story. There’s so much, in fact, that the main plot essentially stands still as readers catch up with it. The final act, however, features nonstop action with daunting villains; Max is the best one—a creepy vagrant and whose monstrous “Trueface” (or genuine appearance) Ashton teases for most of the narrative. There’s also an impressive blend of biblical and Greek mythologies, with numerous characters whose names readers will find familiar. This book is emphatically adult, with an abundance of coarse language and hefty violence—blood, beheadings, and spilled entrails. Ashton doesn’t address some lingering questions, such as who exactly Father is, until near the end, and others remain unanswered. But more is sure to come, as the coda leaves characters’ fates in the air and multiple worlds to explore.
A fast-paced, gloriously intricate introduction to a potential epic.Pub Date: March 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9971737-0-3
Page Count: 478
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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