The plot is thin, but fun characters and sharp writing make Starbuck’s novel a worthy read.
In this snappy sci-fi debut, artificial intelligence is real and its fate lies in the comically clumsy hands of two investigative journalists.
Eight years have passed since the passage of Sherlock’s Laws, which banned the development of artificial intelligence following public outcry at the debut of a self-aware robot. Journalist Robert Merek, frustrated by his investigation into a major technology corporation’s unethical research, receives a tip from an insider: The company’s top R&D researcher, who also happens to have been the brains behind the original Sherlock robot, has gone missing. Allison, the CEO’s assistant, fears foul play. Robert and his goofy freelancing partner, Leonard, jump at the chance for a career-making scoop. Alongside Allison, they leap into a scattershot day of investigating the company’s murky dealings. Starbuck writes with an intentionally prominent authorial presence, starting the book off with a self-conscious note about intention and structuring the narrative as a collage of sections with titles such as “The Inciting Incident,” “Intermission” and “The Falling Action.” Characters and concepts remain only lightly developed and sometimes implausible. The book springs from one familiar trope to the next—the discovery of the wrecked apartment, the break-in at the robotics lab, etc.—but the book riffs playfully on these sci-fi clichés more than it falls prey to them, creating a delightfully skewed reality that reads like a long, consistently entertaining inside joke. Upon entering his enemy’s drab headquarters, Leonard—the quintessential bumbling sidekick, who bases his every move on scenes from his favorite spy movies—thinks: “They weren’t even located in the mouth of an active volcano, for Christ’s sake! Some villains these guys were.” The author’s light touch also makes the sudden gravity of the book’s final act all the more effective; seeing the heroes stuck in a patch of moral ambiguity is a stark contrast to their previously cartoonish adventures.
The plot is thin, but fun characters and sharp writing make Starbuck’s novel a worthy read.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2012
ISBN: B007JNJ9IU
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Smashwords
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
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