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LIA, HUMAN OF UTAH

Name: LIA, HUMAN OF UTAH
Author: Greg Ramsay
ISBN: 978-1-77508-336-8

BOOK TWO

by Greg Ramsay ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi tale that surpasses its predecessor.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.