Despite lackluster dialogue, this book expertly manages a sci-fi conceit that is as bizarre as it is ultimately plausible.
Scientists using suspicious technology may be seeking to trigger an apocalypse in this novel from debut author Ormziar.
A theologian named Hast wakes up in 2060 from a striking nightmare. Having envisioned a day of judgment for mankind, he cannot easily shake the images. As he comments to his wife, “Doomsday is perhaps on its way” after all. A week ago, “he had read a news article where scientists were warning people that a deadly meteor was heading toward earth, and it was set to hit it by 2068.” Days after his dream, Hast is contacted by Interpol agent Mark Robinson. Working on a tip that “someone was trying to play the role of God and was planning to control everyone’s mind,” Mark finds himself examining a large scientific project called The New ARK. TNARK, as the endeavor is known, is ostensibly engaged in the process of using “genetic engineering to modify human genes in order to create a super organism.” There are, however, suspicions that something much more sinister is at play. When, during Mark’s investigation into mind control, he comes across Hast’s writings on the subject as well as his work on end-of-days prophecies, Mark realizes that he might be looking for the Antichrist. So begins an unlikely alliance that seeks to thwart a scientific attempt at world domination. Making use of “3D bio-printing technology” and other near-future (and present-day) advancements, the scenario delivers its share of wild, albeit not too wild, ideas. The result is an overall eeriness that would not exist in a more fantastical premise. Dialogue tends to be obvious, as when Mark first meets Hast and informs him that he seems to “have an impressive knowledge about the history of religions, especially Abrahamic faiths.” Nevertheless, at under 300 pages, the book moves quickly and encompasses topics ranging from the duality of Zoroastrianism to “blue light brain control.” As strange as such a convergence may initially seem, it results in an ambitious narrative that never lacks in fatalistic intrigue.
Despite lackluster dialogue, this book expertly manages a sci-fi conceit that is as bizarre as it is ultimately plausible.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5172-2388-5
Page Count: 276
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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