A trilogy of exuberant and lucid tales that exhibits a fear of the future, regardless of the time period.
In this sci-fi series, an alien species secretly on Earth tries to prevent humanity’s extinction.
This collection opens with The Chaos Machine, which describes freight haulers from the planet Shoomar landing on an unknown world in 5342 B.C.E. Their ship, capable of traversing the space-time continuum, experienced a “Bad Jump” that has left crew members stranded on Earth. Fortunately, they can live comfortably on the planet, which is comparable to Shoomar. But according to projections from the ship’s navigational system, earthlings will be wiped out in a thousand years, and the Shoomarans want to ensure that doesn’t happen. Millennia later, in the present day, California billionaire Allen Brookstone mysteriously vanishes. He’s been taken by an eccentric group with advanced technology, including the Chaos Machine, which has predicted the imminent end of the world. The band needs Allen’s assistance in stopping the apocalyptic event. Second Contact takes place in “5342 AB,” when Cassiopeia, a 19-year-old human living on the planet Perseus VII, learns about one of her ancestors who aided the Shoomarans in saving Earth’s inhabitants. Cassiopeia subsequently spearheads the fight for humans to be admitted into the intergalactic Universal Alliance, but some in the Shoomaran Empire have trouble believing in the strange race of Homo sapiens. The final and shortest novel, Mankind 2.0, takes readers back to Allen’s time period. He concocts a drastic plan to safeguard humanity from a Chaos Machine–predicted superstorm as well as other potential doomsday scenarios. Hamilton’s (Goddess of the Gillani, 2018, etc.) three books skillfully complement one another. While each novel is a self-contained narrative, this collection feels like one lengthy story divided into a trio of sections. There’s the occasional recap of preceding events, but it never overwhelms the saga or slows the overall steady pace. In the same vein, both technology and popular sci-fi notions are relatively simple. Portable notepods, for example, are familiar devices, described at one point as “computer tablets on steroids.” Even the more exotic Chaos Machine is comprehensible. Any intercession based on the machine’s predictions calls forth the butterfly effect, a phenomenon the author wisely assumes sci-fi fans already know. The author’s true focus is the story’s emotional core, including the Shoomarans’ ultimate decision to help humans; Cassiopeia’s exploration of her origin; and the very real possibility that a particular cataclysm will be unavoidable. Unfortunately, dialogue among so many characters is sometimes too interchangeable. Though Hamilton clarifies that he’s essentially translating the alien Universal language into English, the aliens and humans mostly sound alike, as one of the Shoomarans even drops a Star Wars–inspired line. But characters are otherwise distinctive. Tireless Cassiopeia is a standout: Securing admission into the alliance requires outsmarting the Shoomaran prime minister, who’s 69,000 years old. The book likewise boasts a bit of mystery, particularly throughout Contact. It entails a few references, like the Final Blackout, that aren’t clear until Mankind hops back in time.
A trilogy of exuberant and lucid tales that exhibits a fear of the future, regardless of the time period.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-979168-77-9
Page Count: 646
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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