A thoughtful and eventful sci-fi mystery that satisfies.
In this novel, a group of astronauts explores a faraway planet for colonization, but discovers it already has some inhabitants.
After the last Great War in 2054, the worldwide population was reduced to less than 100,000. By 2072, Earth is a wasteland that can no longer feed its people. Only finding a suitable exoplanet can save humans now, so the Order of World Leaders mounts an expedition to Arianrhod in the Triangulum Galaxy to see whether it can sustain life. The crew consists of three women, Xi, Rho, and Zeta—the narrator—and three men, Sigma, Omega, and Chi, all young scientists (their Greek letter tags are adopted for the operation). Their leader is Capt. Ralph Reynard, “a retired former United States Marine from back when the United States still existed.” It’s a dangerous mission uncertain of success, but if they triumph, the seven will earn early retirement and lifelong prosperity. But not long after their arrival, the undertaking goes haywire: Reynard acts suspiciously and a scientist disappears. Searching for the lost Sigma, Zeta discovers what seems to be an alien species—but they speak Russian. With everything at stake not just for themselves but for Earth, the team members make some desperate choices. Goodison (Limboland, 2016, etc.) entertainingly blends the sci-fi and mystery genres here; though Sigma’s death is made clear before long, other puzzles arise to be solved. Complicated strands in the plot include the early space race, the environment, and class/power struggles; these issues add thoughtfulness to the book’s exciting action scenes. Goodison keeps readers guessing about Reynard, OWL, their real motives, and how this can all possibly work out until the final pages. Although the Greek letter tags make it a little difficult to keep everyone straight at first, Goodison’s characterization is well drawn, and Zeta becomes an admirable heroine, a tough, smart cookie with a good moral center. This future world is usually presented with plausible changes, but to quibble, it’s annoying when years and months are renamed—for no discernible reason—“rotations” and “moons,” while days are still “days.”
A thoughtful and eventful sci-fi mystery that satisfies.Pub Date: May 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-945136-19-1
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Sheffield Publications
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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