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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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