An addition to Asimov's series of robot-detective novels, and a more convincing effort than The Robot of Dawn (1983). Nearly two centuries after the death of Earth detective Elijah Baley, Settlers—short-lived, disease-ridden, dynamic pioneers from Earth—have begun to colonize the galaxy. By contrast, the long-established, long-lived, aristocratic, robot-dependant Spacers have started to decline. So, Spacer planet Aurora's head-cheese Kelden Amadiro, still smarting from his long-ago defeat by Baley, teams up with unpleasant, ambitious robotics whiz Levular Mandamus to plot Earth's destruction and thus halt Settler expansion. Meanwhile, Baley's old flame Gladia joins D.G., a Baley descendant from the Settler planet Baleyworld, to investigate some lethal goings-on on the recently-abandoned Spacer world, Solaria. Also, ostensibly accompanying Gladia but actually running the show, are robots Giskard (he secretly has the power to read and adjust emotions) and Daneel, the humaniform detective and Baley's former partner. As the plot lines intertwine, the human drama that ensues is decidedly tame and talky, from standard fulminating villains to tepid romancing. However, the real heroes here are Giskard and Daneel, as they grapple with the case and with the restrictions imposed on them by the built-in Three Laws of Robotics—and grope towards a solution that transcends everything. A satisfying plot, then, marred by perfunctory backdrops and fairly mundane human doings—but scintillating and stimulating whenever the robots occupy center stage.
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1985
ISBN: 0586062009
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1985
Entertaining, though not in the league of J.K. Rowling—or even Anne Rice. But please, people: no more vamps and wizards, OK?
Harry Potter meets Lestat de Lioncourt. Throw in a time machine, and you’ve got just about everything you need for a full-kit fantasy.
The protagonist is a witch. Her beau is a vampire. If you accept the argument that we’ve seen entirely too many of both kinds of characters in contemporary fiction, then you’re not alone. Yet, though Harkness seems to be arriving very late to a party that one hopes will soon break up, her debut novel has its merits; she writes well, for one thing, and, as a historian at the University of Southern California, she has a scholarly bent that plays out effectively here. Indeed, her tale opens in a library—and not just any library, but the Bodleian at Oxford, pride of England and the world. Diana Bishop is both tenured scholar and witch, and when her book-fetcher hauls up a medieval treatise on alchemy with “a faint, iridescent shimmer that seemed to be escaping from between the pages,” she knows what to do with it. Unfortunately, the library is crammed with other witches, some of malevolent intent, and Diana soon finds that books can be dangerous propositions. She’s a bit of a geek, and not shy of bragging, either, as when she trumpets the fact that she has “a prodigious, photographic memory” and could read and write before any of the other children of the coven could. Yet she blossoms, as befits a bodice-ripper no matter how learned, once neckbiter and renowned geneticist Matthew Clairmont enters the scene. He’s a smoothy, that one, “used to being the only active participant in a conversation,” smart and goal-oriented, and a valuable ally in the great mantomachy that follows—and besides, he’s a pretty good kisser, too. “It’s a vampire thing,” he modestly avers.
Entertaining, though not in the league of J.K. Rowling—or even Anne Rice. But please, people: no more vamps and wizards, OK?Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02241-0
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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