Readers who have followed Michael and Oats’ long search will likely enjoy this latest installment, but newcomers to the...
Two pals continue their quest for scientific and religious truths while their friends prepare for major life changes in Dimond’s sequel to By Accident or Design (2014).
Michael and his trusted confidant, John Bran, or “Oats” to his friends, begin the next phase of their odyssey with an exploration of the theories of Isaac Newton. During their previous adventures, Oats discovered Newton’s theories of gravity and motion, culminating in the opportunity to witness the scientist’s debates with three of his friends. Although the duo enjoyed the meetings, Oats has the nagging suspicion that critical information was intentionally withheld. Oats believes this data lies with a pilgrim who attended the meeting but never spoke. The pair wants to find the pilgrim; however, Michael and Oats must also examine the interplay between religion and science. Meanwhile, they learn from Pim, a spirit image and Michael’s longtime counsel, that their mission may be affected by an impending galaxy exchange. Aided by their friends, including Mharn, Janet, Marmuron, and Mykron, the two comrades seek an Oracle in the village of Benlay, while Oats gains insights into religious history through regression analysis. Along the way, Oats reflects on his relationship with Marmuron while Mykron rediscovers a lost love. The novel seamlessly follows the groundwork laid in the four previous books; but this may be a tenuous starting point for a new reader to the series. As in Dimond’s preceding installment, Michael and Oats engage here in numerous philosophical and religious discussions. Their debates, although lengthy, are never dull and include a variety of viewpoints and perspectives. While the central plot focuses on a hunt for religious truth, the development of Oats and Marmuron’s relationship and Mykron’s reunion with lover Velia provide a poignant counterbalance and added character depth. The author presents a rather unusual mix of philosophy, religion, and sci-fi, but he offers some clarity in the form of extended summaries of previous novels and character profiles.
Readers who have followed Michael and Oats’ long search will likely enjoy this latest installment, but newcomers to the series should start at the beginning.Pub Date: March 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5144-4687-4
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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