A thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi tale that surpasses its predecessor.
In this sequel, a woman with enhanced powers faces off against aliens and mutated humans.
It hasn’t been long since Lia awakened in a post-apocalyptic Utah populated by murderous creatures. Slowly regaining her memories, she gets some clarification: Her husband, James, created the L strain to combat a super-cancer infecting their daughter, Tory. At the time, extraterrestrial technology had led to advances on Earth, and James derived the L strain from an “alien substance.” This ultimately led to extensive human mutation, including in Lia, whose body can generate “razor-sharp tendrils,” among other changes. Now in the 24th century, after Lia has lost colleagues and loved ones, there’s little remaining on Earth. James suggests traveling to a colony ship in space, in which human survivors fled back when the L strain and an alien invasion were growing concerns. The couple find the ship, but their predicament hardly improves. Soon they’re up against more mutated creatures as well as aliens on the hunt for human slaves. As the story progresses, Lia garners additional abilities and an immense power that’s virtually limitless—with the potential to destroy an entire planet. Ramsay’s (Lia, Human of Utah: Book One, 2017) first installment thrived on mystery, as Lia initially could remember nothing. This book, in contrast, delves into engrossing backstories for Lia, James, and even the aliens. The exposition rarely affects the narrative’s steady pace, and the second half is jampacked with rousing action sequences featuring lethal weapons: “Lia forced her armour to obey, reconstituting it around the reverberating power…she redirected that energy to her katana, pointing directly at the curious monster’s face.” At the same time, the plot boasts a couple of genuine surprises and profound moments of Lia ruminating about mutated people she has had to kill. While the ending is definitive, readers may want another installment or even a prequel or spinoff centered on another character.
A thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi tale that surpasses its predecessor.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-77508-336-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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