An astute, socially relevant tale set in a world that readers will happily get lost in.
In Matiasz’s (End Time, 1994) sci-fi novel, a private investigator scours a dystopian San Francisco for a killer.
By 2042, America has fragmented: massive earthquakes have devastated the West Coast, while riots and social chaos have created lawless regions across the country, and some territories have even seceded from the United States. Private eye Jimmy Hidalgo’s latest gig seems relatively easy: find a missing woman—a deadly OverUnity operative who’s likely in San Francisco. His client is Ajnzar, who turns out to be one of the Majjar, an alien species allied with the OverUnity civilization that governs the Sagittarius galactic arm. Jimmy is also looking into the murder of his friend Danny Delgado, although forensics can’t quite explain the condition of his small, gray corpse. The PI soon suspects that Danny’s killer and the missing human operative, whose name translates to “Anger Cat Stealth,” are the same woman. Meanwhile, another human named Becky Wiley has managed to illegally acquire three security cases, which separately contain a gem, personal documents belonging to a person named Robert Yi Lee, and a bizarre alien artifact; she does her best to steer clear of suddenly inquisitive cops and feds. More murders ensue, and Jimmy eventually crosses paths with Becky, a hunter alien, and a human with psionic ability. Matiasz presents an engaging view of a future world that brims with intriguing political and societal issues; for example, racial segregation is shown to spark migration, and openly gay Becky remembers high school days of homophobic torment. The author also relays extensive exposition in various, clever ways, including snippets of a TV show and part of a lecture about “America’s Terror War.” There’s so much worldbuilding, in fact, that it doesn’t allow much room for action, and the inevitable climax happens very late in the book. The ambience, however, is so richly textured and frightening that it’s palpable.
An astute, socially relevant tale set in a world that readers will happily get lost in.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9977054-3-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: 62 Mile Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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
The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume’s latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed; Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Martha’s Vineyard, her life changes forever. Victoria, or more commonly Vix, lives in a small house; her brother has muscular dystrophy; her mother is unhappy, and money is scarce. Caitlin, on the other hand, lives part of the year with her wealthy mother Phoebe, who’s just moved to Albuquerque, and summers with her father Lamb, equally affluent, on the Vineyard. The story of how this casual invitation turns the two girls into what they call "Summer sisters" is prefaced with a prologue in which Vix is asked by Caitlin to be her matron of honor. The years in between are related in brief segments by numerous characters, but mostly by Vix. Caitlin, determined never to be ordinary, is always testing the limits, and in adolescence falls hard for Von, an older construction worker, while Vix falls for his friend Bru. Blume knows the way kids and teens speak, but her two female leads are less credible as they reach adulthood. After high school, Caitlin travels the world and can’t understand why Vix, by now at Harvard on a scholarship and determined to have a better life than her mother has had, won’t drop out and join her. Though the wedding briefly revives Vix’s old feelings for Bru, whom Caitlin is marrying, Vix is soon in love with Gus, another old summer friend, and a more compatible match. But Caitlin, whose own demons have been hinted at, will not be so lucky. The dark and light sides of friendship breathlessly explored in a novel best saved for summer beachside reading.
Pub Date: May 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-32405-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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