Surreal notions and landscape, grounded by the chic gadgets and intrigue of an espionage tale.
In this debut paranormal-infused thriller, competing intelligence agencies use metaphysical technology while facing off in a realm beyond the corporeal world.
Professor Robert Shilling was 9 when his parents died in a car wreck. Believing there’s a chance he can still communicate with them, he places FieldREGs (random-event generators) around his New Jersey childhood home. Rob seems to have unknowingly piqued the interest of the NSA’s Gen. Donald Flint, who’s determined to get his hands on the professor’s files. He sends rookie agent Amanda Denoyer, Rob’s new postdoc at Duke University, to find the files. What exactly Flint wants isn’t immediately clear, but it’s related to his project, Celestial Destiny. He’s furthermore impatiently awaiting completion of the enigmatic imaging cube from postdoc Vadim Gostkov. The Russian’s heading the NSA-sponsored research group at MIT professor Dirk Jenner’s Institute for Transformative Research in Metamaterials—metamaterials that “exhibit properties not found in nature.” Meanwhile, John Pierce, who works at the research institute, has an appointment with psychologist Dr. Helene Bertrand for the hallucinations he’s been experiencing. Helene’s psychiatrist colleague Paul Greer, however, has seen patients (John’s co-workers) with identical hallucinatory symptoms, leading him to speculate they’re all seeing physical manifestations (ghosts, perhaps?). When someone winds up in a coma after an unexplained heart attack, it doesn’t prevent the person’s abduction. But these apparent kidnappers, traversing a plane not of the known world, haven’t seized the physical body; they’ve taken the soul. The resultant rescue operation precipitates a battle in a strange, unfamiliar realm. Engelmayr’s book is an impressive fusion of paranormal novel and techno-thriller. Amanda, for one, in her first NSA mission, has a run-in with a Russian agent, while an intelligence agency is intent on destroying Celestial Destiny. These take place within a story brimming with metaphysical terminology, like the silver cords linking people outside their bodies to their physical selves. Characters often speak in hypotheticals, as they’re discussing concepts that are abstract, primarily unknown, or written off as pseudoscience. Fortunately, the crisp dialogue takes an intelligent, scientific approach. Flint, for example, proffers: “It’s a classic chicken-or-the-egg phenomenon. Do crustal magnetic anomalies associated with iron ore alter our biological circuitry, making us think we’re seeing ghosts? Or do ghosts tend to congregate around iron deposits?” Similarly, Engelmayr simplifies the plot by separating science and religion; Paul stresses proving “not the afterlife” but “an afterlife,” while Jenner differentiates the out-of-body soul from the biblical soul. The 2012-set story is augmented with the incorporation of real-life events, from impending Hurricane Sandy to people’s fears that the world will end before the year’s over. There are effective reveals, such as what the imaging cube does, and a final act, on the other plane, in which some of the threats aren’t exactly human. But while characters’ back stories are generally solid, a few are lacking. Helene, in particular, was traumatized by a 1980s horror film; for readers who haven’t seen it, vague details like “scary storm clouds” won’t register.
Surreal notions and landscape, grounded by the chic gadgets and intrigue of an espionage tale.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-59566-4
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Engelmayr
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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