by Gary W. Roberto ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2010
An uncompromising cautionary tale with bold notions about how the government of Earth ought to conduct itself.
Belligerent states on Earth get their just deserts from an intergalactic enforcer in Roberto’s sci-fi thriller.
Robert Benson—astrophysicist, quantum mechanics expert, professor, survivor, narrator—first experienced a visitation to Earth by an alien emissary from the Association of Planets in 1951, when he was nine years old. Though distant, the Association was troubled by Earth’s warring tendencies and sought to bring peace. But the American government was in no mood—politicians and their military-industrial cronies were getting rich off war. When the emissary leaves, the government viciously works to erase all memory of the visit. In particular, it persecutes Benson’s mother, who had become close of the emissary, Klaatu. Benson, now 70, is on hand to witness the consequences as the Association sends a destroyer to wipe out all nuclear capabilities of Earth, and a significant portion of its population. Roberto sets forth the proceedings with a good dash of retro color—a flying saucer and a monster robot complete with helmet-head and visor, “a horrible, but magnificent sight”—plenty of suspense, a disturbing canvas of the world’s nuclear landscape and a fondness for goosey modifiers (“ravening terror”), with the elements working together to develop the pleasing, melodramatic timbre of comic books. Along the way, Benson offers a handful of pointed opinions about lawyers (“the ruin of us all”), how to conduct war (Major Holloway: “[I]t should be waged as such until every last one of your enemy is destroyed…men, women, and children.” Benson: “Well said, Major Holloway.”) and the fathomless evil of politicians. This all makes him an intriguing, complicated figure, to say the least: a libertarian constitutionalist whose farewell speech—he’s off to Muurae, Klaatu’s home planet—could have been written by Orwell: “If the people of Earth fail to proceed along the path of peaceful existence, if you fail to follow the Association of Planets guidelines and regulations toward a new peaceful and prosperous Earth,” well, the peaceniks in the Association will blow you to smithereens.
An uncompromising cautionary tale with bold notions about how the government of Earth ought to conduct itself.Pub Date: March 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-1450063944
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
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