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of biodiversity, suggesting that the current theories of the origins of the human race are “parochial, theoretical, outdated and incomplete.”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
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
