A good-fun entry point into the world of steampunk.
In his fiction debut, della Quercia imaginatively steampunks a worldwide conspiracy confronting President William Howard Taft, a crisis that threatens the U.S.
Curiously, Taft is "the single greatest underground boxing champion the world would never know of." That avocation is facilitated by Nellie Taft’s willingness to run her husband’s administration; a look-alike automaton; and an 800-foot-plus flying machine, Airship One, capable of a fun trip across the pond so Taft can box four London toughs in one night. In a plot bracketed by Lincoln’s assassination and the sinking of the Titanic, Taft and company cope with a sinister superweapon fueled by cesium hydroxide, clues to which are incorporated in a pocket watch, "unlike any machine in history," given to Lincoln by a Russian ambassador. The watch is brought to Taft by a worried Robert Lincoln, Abraham’s son. More characters are yanked from history, including Tesla (he gets good press), Edison (he doesn’t), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Machiavellian J.P. Morgan, and diabolical King Leopold II of Belgium, ravager of the Congo. Taft’s the most appealing character, 350 pounds of bon homme, passionately in love with Nellie, loyal to those who serve him, including the Cuban cigar–smoking Wilkie, Secret Service chief and bane of Nellie’s existence. There’s a Marx Brothers reference amplified by a Groucho-ism; an attack at the White House; an invasion of Yale’s Skull and Bones, “the greatest secret of the society: its lack of any particularly meaningful secrets”; an Airship One trip to meet Kurtz in the heart of darkness; and a rock-'em, sock-'em shootout aboard the Titanic. Highlighted by footnotes linking events to news reports in the archives of the New York Times, the narrative moves smoothly, a tale laced with dialogue often incorporating Tom Swift–ian charm and constructed so that techno-wizardry doesn't overwhelm the story.
A good-fun entry point into the world of steampunk.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-02571-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Well-meant but not very well-written family saga.
A best-selling thriller author turns to down-home melodrama—with mixed results at best.
Louisa May Cardinal (Lou) is only 12 when she and her brother Oz survive a car crash that kills their beloved father and leaves their mother Amanda mute and partially paralyzed. Kindly Great-grandmother Louisa insists that all three come back to the Appalachian homestead that has sheltered so many generations of their poor but honest clan—and they do, having nowhere else to go. The children, who grew up in New York, are bewildered by the strangeness of it all, while a family friend and lawyer, Cotton Longfellow, helps out whenever he can. He patiently reads aloud to the barely responsive Amanda and explains country customs to Lou and Oz. But soon the venerable Louisa suffers a devastating stroke—just as a local schemer comes up with a plot to sell her land to the powerful coal company that has ravaged the beauty of the mountains and left its supposed beneficiaries with nothing but black lung disease, crippling debt, and the certainty of early death. The saintly Cotton battles in court on Louisa’s behalf, but the jury finds for the coal company since the stricken matriarch can’t speak in order to tell her side of the story. All seems lost with Louisa’s death, but—with a snap of the fingers—the silent Amanda springs back into full consciousness and the villains are foiled. Political thrillers may be his strength, but Baldacci (Saving Faith, 1999, etc.) here is somewhere between middling and graceless. Drawing on his own rural Virginia heritage, he attempts various styles—backwoods dialect, homespun philosophizing, small-town courtroom theatrics—but his tin ear for dialogue and cloudy eye for metaphor stand in the way of success.
Well-meant but not very well-written family saga.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2000
ISBN: 0-446-52716-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers...
Exploring humankind's place in the universe and the nature of humanity, many of the stories in this stellar collection focus on how technological advances can impact humanity’s evolutionary journey.
Chiang's (Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002) second collection begins with an instant classic, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” which won Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette in 2008. A time-travel fantasy set largely in ancient Baghdad, the story follows fabric merchant Fuwaad ibn Abbas after he meets an alchemist who has crafted what is essentially a time portal. After hearing life-changing stories about others who have used the portal, he decides to go back in time to try to right a terrible wrong—and realizes, too late, that nothing can erase the past. Other standout selections include “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a story about a software tester who, over the course of a decade, struggles to keep a sentient digital entity alive; “The Great Silence,” which brilliantly questions the theory that humankind is the only intelligent race in the universe; and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny,” which chronicles the consequences of machines raising human children. But arguably the most profound story is "Exhalation" (which won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Short Story), a heart-rending message and warning from a scientist of a highly advanced, but now extinct, race of mechanical beings from another universe. Although the being theorizes that all life will die when the universes reach “equilibrium,” its parting advice will resonate with everyone: “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.”
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers in a big way.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-94788-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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