Readers who like cow-related puns and vaudeville action will enjoy Granholm’s debut.
A comic disaster novel that marries Sharknado-type shenanigans with a keen sense of the absurd.
On the Pacific island of Wagyu, Dr. Yan Mishima dedicates himself to his greatest invention yet: a miniature nuclear power source known as a Nucliette. But when a freak ocean wave destroys the lab and whisks the Nucliette out to sea, hell follows with it. The destination: Bay City, where “meteorolonomicist” Devon Steerman, an expert in the study of how weather affects the economy; Tauros car salesman Belmont “Red” Simford; Simford’s henchman Dutch Friesian; celebrity impersonator Siri Batangas; a group of thrill-seeking surfers; and beat cop Chris Holstein reckon with the Nucliette’s awesome side effects. These include the creation of telepathic, fire-breathing cows with acid-spewing udders and explosive cow pies; mutant sea gulls; and comic chaos that will bring the world to the brink of annihilation. Meanwhile, aliens bearing an uncanny resemblance to Hereford cows plan to colonize Earth. Even those with little taste for bovine puns (of which there are plenty) will find themselves submitting to the sheer exuberance of Granholm’s vision. The plot hits all the typical nuclear-age B-movie beats as well as underlying environmentalist rage, liberally spiced with the author’s obvious knowledge of disaster scenarios. The story never quite reaches the dizzying literary heights of Kurt Vonnegut’s or Thomas Pynchon’s works, although Granholm clearly tips his hat to them with his ridiculous character names. However, the novel shares Stephen King’s books’ well-observed sense of place and pace, and even its pulpier prose resonates with the emphatic confidence of a writer who’s unafraid to double down on absurdity. Although the humor sometimes undermines the dramatic action and detracts from the careful worldbuilding, there’s no doubt that Granholm is technically skillful—as adept with comic characterization and juggling multiple viewpoints as he is with emphatically terrible jokes.
Readers who like cow-related puns and vaudeville action will enjoy Granholm’s debut.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9989631-0-5
Page Count: 212
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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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