A fun, tech-focused YA novel set in a futuristic yet familiar world.
Two teenage friends from different parts of the United States embark on a high-tech adventure in Shaw’s (Neworld Papers: The Warriors’ Tale, 2016, etc.) YA sci-fi tale.
GundTech, the technology firm that revolutionized the world years ago with its cutting-edge communication and artificial-intelligence products, has a new device that’s poised to change everything once again. The Interactive Holographic Transporter allows users to experience a virtual reality so real that it may even be physically dangerous. For Cameron Rush in Wisconsin and Rosa Costas in New Mexico, the best part of the announcement involves the creation of an IHT Academy for teenagers like them. Although the two have never met in person and come from very different backgrounds, they’re both “geeks” (whether Cameron will admit it or not) who hang out via their GundTech multiComs. For them, the reward of getting accepted to the academy outweighs any potential risks. What they don’t know is that there are other forces at work behind the scenes. For one, the mysterious child prodigy behind GundTech’s inventions is grown up now and starting to realize that his well-intentioned products can cause unintended consequences. And the tech’s code still has some bugs, including some that are dangerous and others that that may have been planted by someone (or something) with his or her own agenda. Shaw has crafted a thought-provoking story that hints at issues that today’s youth already face, such as how technology can be a boon as well as a bane, but he never lets these topics overwhelm the joy of the overall story. Young readers will quickly relate to Cameron and Rosa as they get swept up in their virtual studies. However, the story sags a bit in the second half due to the introduction of a game called “time tag,” a neat idea, but one that distracts too much from the plot. Some readers may be dismayed at the all-too-abrupt ending, as well. But most will find this novel to be an intelligent, inspiring adventure with fully formed characters.
A fun, tech-focused YA novel set in a futuristic yet familiar world.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-37518-1
Page Count: 326
Publisher: iPulpFiction.com
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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