A crowd-pleasing if not-especially-enlightening ``spiritual journey,'' Ö la The Celestine Prophecy, is taken by a surprisingly engaging cast of characters. Middle-aged history professor John McGowan, a self-described ``non-believer,'' lives a quiet existence with his wife, Sarah, and their two young sons near the backwoods Pennsylvania college where he teachesuntil the day he receives a certified letter from Washington attorney James Stanton informing him of a sudden ``inheritance'' that he must collect in person at Stanton's D.C. office. The inheritance proves to be a cigar box containing three letters, including one from his father, archaeologist Bill McGowan, who left the States for a dig in Israel when John was five and never returned. The letters document Bill's discovery ofand eventual loss ofthe ``Messiah Stones,'' three carved tablets given to Moses by Jehovah prophesying the final coming of the Messiah. When an overwhelmed John returns home and shows the letters to Sarah, the two decide they have no choice but to fulfill what seems to be their shared destiny: to re-find the stones. They head for Israel with Martha, a colleague of John's and a seeker of spirituality in her own right; once in Jerusalem, they meet up with Avi, a best friend of Bill's who helped him find the stones 40 years before. En route to their final goal, the gang receives encouraging signs from the Messiah in the form of angel-like ``messengers,'' and ultimately hooks up with Simon, who brings them to Bill McGowan's gravesite and helps them all, quite literally, see the light. First-time author Benig may not be the second coming of James Redfield, but this lightweight adventure can be a fun jaunt nonetheless. (First printing of 150,000; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-44749-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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