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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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