by Jack Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 9, 2017
An implausible mix of Planet Krypton heroics with a condemnation of barbarous arch-conservative misrule works well enough...
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Secret societies and superheroes with ties to an ancient, alien power battle a fanatical right-wing Christian dictatorship in 21st-century America.
In 2033, Clay Bradley is an ex-cartoonist languishing in a torture cell in a Kansas prison (named for Jerry Falwell). A fascist dictatorship assumed power after a coup by militant Gospel-pounders and right-wingers replaced the U.S. government with a rogue Christian police state. Bradley is visited, granted superior powers and a “Star Dagger,” and liberated by swashbuckling Frederick Dixon, an authentic Tuskegee Airman who underwent a similar transformation during his own jail ordeal in the Jim Crow 1950s. In a manner not unlike DC Comics’ Green Lantern Corps, an ancient alien entity called Cronus, directing human progress from the moon, periodically assigns exceptional and persecuted males to be “Bringers” (as in bringers of justice)—Knights of Cronus do-gooders with enhanced life spans and perceptions and physical/mental prowess that seem to defy physics. Bringers work in concert (and sometimes in love) with “Nurses,” a female secret society (or two) also dating back to antiquity. Over centuries, their deeds were distorted by church bigotry and superstition. Debut author Hughes’ sci-fi/fantasy dystopia novel—combining comics-style avengers with a nightmarish future fundamentalist America—shouldn’t hang together as well as it does. Initially, the author seems to be aiming for Rabelaisian satire or at least the tongue-in-cheek flavor of Robert Anton Wilson or Kurt Vonnegut (recipient of a shoutout). But the happenings get grimly transfixing as the author introduces the Bringers’ new foe, the fanatic “Dominionist” Jesus-centric ruling political junta. Their sins include female genital mutilation and sundry oppression of women; public stonings of abortionists and ex–porn stars; destruction of the Mount Rushmore monument as idolatry; widespread cigarette smoking (big tobacco being backers of the theocracy); a revived Confederacy, with Jehovah-approved slavery on the table; incompetent handling of the economy; and so on. (Readers might ponder whether Islam also gets routinely pilloried in similar literary terms. All we hear of American Muslims here is that Dominionists banished them to “their cold Michigan ghettos.”) Hughes' work makes S. Andrew Offut’s virulently anti-clerical, very similar sci-fi novel Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards (1970) read like the Chronicles of Narnia, and one wonders whether this novel would have worked better minus a gee-whiz paranormal angle (as Offut did it). But the way-out stuff does allow an extremely imaginative tangent with the colorful narrative within the narrative of “the Hun,” a rebellious Knight of Cronus from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Hughes has a flair not only for history, but also bigger-than-life storytelling and characterizations, though expository dialogue tends to get top-heavy. Additional matters, such as invisible “demons” that feed on human suffering and a scantly described opposition cult of evil mystics, are not dwelt upon and are presumably fodder for sequels. The author warns against real-life religious conservatives in government in a brief afterword.
An implausible mix of Planet Krypton heroics with a condemnation of barbarous arch-conservative misrule works well enough that one might call it a small miracle.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-981575-14-5
Page Count: 403
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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