Well-formed characters and a vivid setting make this futuristic tale a standout.
In Dudley’s (Crossing Xavier, 2016) sci-fi sequel, Earth colonists on another planet discover a life-form in need of their help.
Teenage Petrov “Pete” Garrick isn’t content with his life on the planet Glory. Tending the family’s fish farm is simply not as exciting as the adventures of teen space explorers on his favorite program, The Adventures of Biff and Bill. So he jumps at the opportunity to take a school field trip to investigate the Sound, a radio broadcast of a constant pitch whose unknown source is somewhere on the planet. But while Pete and his fellow students are away, his home colony of St. Nicholas is mysteriously destroyed—just like another colony was, nearly two decades before. Later, at college, Pete befriends Docelyn “Docie” Frantzen, and he comes to find out that the Sound is a distress call from a machine known as Knowledge Keeper. It asks the humans to help the enigmatic “ones who are stored in ice”—beings who’ve been dying ever since their Caregiver died. Pete, Docie, and their colleagues do whatever they can to aid the intelligent life-forms, but then other humans learn what’s happening, which could lead to violence. Although Dudley initially keeps the details of the frozen beings ambiguous, the worldbuilding is comprehensive and detailed. The colonies, for example, are shown to be primarily divided by religion (St. Nicholas is Christian; Caravan is Muslim). Intermittent snippets of the Storytellers Forum—aliens discussing the human colonization of Glory, who also appear in the author’s previous book—effectively provide much of the backstory. There’s also plenty of clever, satirical humor; one member of the Forum, for instance, believes that “California” is a religion, whose followers worship money. Dudley develops his dynamic characters at an unhurried pace, such as Pete’s grandmother Katrina, whom he hasn’t seen in years; it’s revealed that she left the colony after St. Nicholas residents deemed one of her poems blasphemous.
Well-formed characters and a vivid setting make this futuristic tale a standout.Pub Date: July 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9976570-2-9
Page Count: 322
Publisher: bearly designed publications
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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