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
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BOOK REVIEW
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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