An engaging wrap-up to an SF series that manages to be apocalyptic, upbeat, intelligent, and pro–U.S. military.
In this conclusion of a techno-thriller trilogy, two key humans who share a psychic bond with abandoned alien spaceships on Earth deal with a cosmic disaster.
In Clarke’s (Triangle, 2017, etc.) previous SF installment, U.S. Navy scientist and pilot Jason Parker became the first human to successfully steer a lost alien spaceship, thanks to his interaction with ancient amphibious extraterrestrials—dubbed “Frogs”—hidden in Earth’s oceans and lakes. Parker and fellow researcher Laura Smith may even be reincarnations of aliens; they seemed to share otherworldly psychic bonds, insights, and remote-viewing powers. The Frogs harbored secrets: They genetically engineered a humanlike species (nicknamed “Trolls”) as slaves. These beings remained behind, along with much “Frogship” material, when the aliens abruptly fled Earth (following their discovery during a Russian-American aquatic face-off). But why did the ETs really depart? Disconcerting hints come in this volume, which begins with more Frogships turning up, one mangled in Arctic ice, the other in the South China Sea. Chinese Communists, of course, would love to get their hands on the technology. But Clarke has a yen for making readers look in one direction while taking the story in another, and abruptly, Jason and Laura are forced into a long-shot rescue mission. The U.S. maintains secret Mars colonies, but some type of catastrophe or attack has occurred there. Barely comprehending how to move a Frogship, Jason must speed the giant metallic triangle to the red planet before the survivors’ air runs out. Then there are the Trolls and what they won’t tell humans. The author deftly brings the disparate elements together in the end along with shoutouts to the real-life British paranormal journal Fortean Times and fantasy author Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and a strange aside that a scientist happens to be married to a music/modeling superstar, no details given. While a lot of the questions in the series are answered, much ambiguity remains. At times, it’s nice that not every enigma gets dutifully checked off; at other times, it’s frustrating. And perhaps not every reader will be as fixated as Clarke (a proud Navy man) on aspects of deep-sea welding. Still, it’s a satisfying trip for the mind that, in the long run, nicely blends blazing adventure SF with the more thoughtful, speculative variety pondering humankind’s destiny.
An engaging wrap-up to an SF series that manages to be apocalyptic, upbeat, intelligent, and pro–U.S. military.Pub Date: May 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9863749-4-4
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Wet Street Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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