A solid, well-paced sci-fi adventure.
Robinson Crusoe returns from a rigidly hierarchical far-future U.K. to a nightmarish North America in search of his love, Friday, in the second book of Robinson’s (Robinson Crusoe 2244, 2014) series updating the Daniel Defoe classic.
Crusoe must seek out Friday and try to rescue her from the Bone Flayers and their terrible leader, Arga’Zul, whose very reputation terrifies the people he meets and forces him to undertake shifting, uncertain alliances. Crusoe tracks her across a continent beset by weird cultures, old and new, and a full array of mutants, war chieftains, and natives both furtive and belligerent. Despite an ever increasing degree of intrigue and back-stabbing, Crusoe makes his way through a dangerous landscape and grows as a person—ever more confident and strong—throwing himself and his future into the search for his one true soul mate. But Arga’Zul is uber-formidable, and Crusoe must do more than merely survive to save the day. As with the previous installment, characters are entertaining but not complex, while their dialogue works for an adventure story (clichéd/classic lines like “Cru-soe is more man than you’ll ever be” appear throughout.) The light language and snappy pace make this a fun, undemanding read. Robinson works to make the setting both exotic and familiar—the surprises aren’t shocking, but they are engaging and occasionally thrilling. It’s admittedly a little odd to see Defoe’s characters transmogrified as they are, particularly the helpful but enigmatic man Friday turned into a somewhat standard young female love interest. And speaking of transformation, the world of the future often seems to play favorites in terms of what survives, from amusement parks to cultures. The story ends, as is the norm, with a cliffhanger, setting the stage for further installments.
A solid, well-paced sci-fi adventure.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5175-4757-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.
Catch-22 is an unusual, wildly inventive comic novel about World War II, and its publishers are planning considerable publicity for it.
Set on the tiny island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea, the novel is devoted to a long series of impossible, illogical adventures engaged in by the members of the 256th bombing squadron, an unlikely combat group whose fanatical commander, Colonel Cathcart, keeps increasing the men's quota of missions until they reach the ridiculous figure of 80. The book's central character is Captain Yossarian, the squadron's lead bombardier, who is surrounded at all times by the ironic and incomprehensible and who directs all his energies towards evading his odd role in the war. His companions are an even more peculiar lot: Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who loved to win parades; Major Major Major, the victim of a life-long series of practical jokes, beginning with his name; the mess officer, Milo Minderbinder, who built a food syndicate into an international cartel; and Major de Coverley whose mission in life was to rent apartments for the officers and enlisted men during their rest leaves. Eventually, after Cathcart has exterminated nearly all of Yossarian's buddies through the suicidal missions, Yossarian decides to desert — and he succeeds.
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1961
ISBN: 0684833395
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1961
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An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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