Bond and DeFelice conjure a chillingly all-too-believable near future global conflict.
The final installment in Bond and DeFelice’s four-book Red Dragon Rising series sees China moving inexorably toward its conquest of Vietnam, while those in the know in the United States government and security services work behind the scenes to stop the Chinese juggernaut in its tracks.
In the Red Dragon Rising series’ version of 2014, climate change has brought the world to the brink of chaos. As the fourth and final book in the series opens, the Chinese army is preparing to sweep through Vietnam as part of a famine-ravaged China’s quest to conquer the smaller nation, primarily as a source of food. Maj. Zeus Murphy is still in country, and he’s come up with a plan to stall the Chinese advance, but in order to put it in motion, he’s going to need to work with the Vietnam People's Army as well as some of the darker elements of the CIA. Back at home, President George Greene, who believes China should be stopped sooner rather than later, and whose approval is necessary to set Murphy’s plan in motion, is facing a political crisis which may tie his hands. Meanwhile, while Josh MacArthur, the scientist who presented the world with proof that China’s justification for going to war was fabricated, is cooling his heels in rural Ohio and pining for CIA agent Mara Duncan, a Chinese assassin is lurking nearby, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Naturally, Bond, who co-authored the quintessential military techno-thriller Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy, is at his best depicting the technological components of modern warfare. He displays an encyclopedic knowledge of modern weapons systems and tactics, and he knows how to use his knowledge to full advantage without bogging things down in military acronyms and technobabble, thus creating exquisite tension during action scenes. When actual human emotions figure into the plot, though, as love does in several instances in this book, things read a little bit off, but few will notice or particularly care thanks to the novel's steamroller plot and tense action sequences.
Bond and DeFelice conjure a chillingly all-too-believable near future global conflict.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2140-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
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
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
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