Elevates the dystopian genre with snappy writing, well-drawn characters, intriguing back story, and bracing battles.
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a woman with special powers and a small band of underground survivors take on a cruel warlord.
Some time after worldwide catastrophic events, few people live past the age of 40. An illness called Cling can be cured only with Clear, a rare substance that’s best found with the help of a “martyr,” a person who can also read minds—like Sadie, 35. She keeps her gift hidden and uses it sparingly (it can sicken or kill), which helps her win card games to buy fuel and avoid warlords such as Gen. Gash. That’s the world aboveground; underground are “moles,” descendants of the first survivors. Polymath Rafael “Rafa” Carrera Allende, 20, lives in one such community, an enlightened bastion. Locating a supply of Clear is crucial, so when the community’s expedition crosses paths with Sadie (deathly ill after overusing her gift), she seems like the answer to its problems. Complicating matters is a tunnel recently discovered that leads from the community to a spot beneath Gash’s lair. There’s also an undeclared war between Gash and Vidar, an arms dealer who employs bounty hunter Finn, who is also Sadie’s ex. They still have a connection, even if she won’t admit it. Finn, Vidar, the community, and Sadie have all the ingredients for a knockdown battle that could end Gash once and for all, free his slaves, obtain Clear, and keep civilization going. Though post-apocalyptic novels set in a Mad Max–like landscape aren’t new, Menapace (Side Effects, 2016, etc.) and debut author Bravo make their hard-bitten world come alive with telling moments, such as a border-town tavern that offers “bowls of what was billed to be cricket mush, but that Sadie knew was roach.” In such a tale, Rafa’s community could easily be made to seem weak and namby-pamby, but the authors intelligently show the hard work, care, and tough-mindedness it takes to keep civilization going. At the same time, the good guys deliver very satisfying beat downs to the baddies in scenes of rousing, cinematic action.
Elevates the dystopian genre with snappy writing, well-drawn characters, intriguing back story, and bracing battles.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9888433-7-0
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Mind Mess Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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