An uplifting sci-fi work about mankind’s origins and ultimate destination.
Dimond’s (The Ascension of Mharn, 2012) ambitious sci-fi novel asks: Is humanity ready to join the citizenry of the cosmos?
After WIL, an ancient alien visitor, saves the life of a scientist’s son, WIL invites the scientist, Michael; his son, David; and Michael’s new love, Janet, on a journey of enlightenment. They experience a mind-expanding ride aboard the Corillion, a ship with almost limitless abilities to move through time and space, and meet Mharn, an alien student from the Kingdom of the Voices and the wise, beautiful spirit, Pim. They soon learn about mind sharing and spirit transfer. Mharn temporarily transforms Michael into a non-corporeal being and helps move a population of once-troubled and reckless spirit beings from an asteroid hurtling toward Earth to their home planet, Gena. After Michael and Mharn help stabilize Gena’s society and culture, Michael’s mind achieves a new level of consciousness and Mharn comes of age as the Kingdom’s new Light Prince. The author skillfully tackles deeply ingrained beliefs about the world’s origins; for example, Munkhan, an alien spirit who has occupied human bodies for centuries, challenges Darwin’s explanation of biodiversity, suggesting that the current theories of the origins of the human race are “parochial, theoretical, outdated and incomplete.” Munkhan later suggests that mankind’s future can be optimistic and egalitarian, and that it will develop a “single language in 130 years and a single voice in 150 years.” Over the course of the novel, Dimond serves up a lesson that the rise of the human race into celestial maturity will ultimately be governed by how we deal with choices and boundaries. Although the novel deals with profound ideas, some chapters are a bit overlong, such as one dealing with the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, and could have been truncated to a single paragraph. That said, the beginning and ending chapters have plenty of momentum, when Michael and his entourage first experience alien technology and philosophy and, later, with the introduction of Munkhan and his ideas.
An uplifting sci-fi work about mankind’s origins and ultimate destination.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-1453520833
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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