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of biodiversity, suggesting that the current theories of the origins of the human race are “parochial, theoretical, outdated and incomplete.”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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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