An intriguing but underdeveloped story about a parallel universe.
A debut graphic novel blends sci-fi and myth.
This book is split into two roughly equal parts, both presented by Karel, a freelance reporter on Earth. The first section introduces some students—Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, and Fox —their professor, nicknamed Pro, and Alpha’s mother, Pam, who is romantically involved with Pro. The team is searching for signs of intelligent life on other worlds. The group discovers a parallel universe that contains a mirror planet to Earth called the Twin. There, humans have evolved into a global society quite different from Earth in terms of ethics, economics, and technology. Pam and Pro travel to the Twin to gather and exchange information, where they have a daughter they name Pamela. Pamela makes the arduous journey to Earth to promote understanding between the cultures. The second half of the book starts with the creation story of the twin universes told from Alpha’s point of view. It also includes a chapter briefly describing a fantasy about Pamela written by Karel and a story arc about an overbearing government trying to force itself on a land called Bohemia. There are some captivating sci-fi ideas in Kosman’s short novel, especially those relating to the wormhole between Earth and the Twin and the complex process of traveling from one planet to the other. But the tale reads more like an outline for something longer and more comprehensive than a finished book. Too much is left out. At one point in the first part of the volume, the author writes that criminals from a penal colony invade the Twin, but that episode is summed up and dismissed in a couple of sentences, and only mentioned in passing in the second half. Readers never get to see the full story. Formatting inconsistencies also make this a tough read. There are occasional shifts into first person; some dialogue is in quotes and some isn’t; and footnotes offer key information that should have been relayed through the main narration. And the images by debut illustrator Tiwari don’t enhance the tale. There are only 13 of them and they reveal nothing that is not already covered in the text.
An intriguing but underdeveloped story about a parallel universe.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-98738-4
Page Count: 106
Publisher: Quires Investments RLLLP
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2018
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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