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TOO CUBED UNAUTHORIZED

Name: TOO CUBED UNAUTHORIZED
Author: Lonna Mae
ISBN: 978-0984598106

VOLUME I

by Lonna Mae ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 2011

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The early days of a jam band show it’s all been a long, strange trip.

Although this debut novel from the pseudonymous Mae opens with the demise of jam band Too Cubed, it’s not long before the story finds its true beginning: the back story of the original four members and how they bond through their love of psychedelic music and a fabulously pure and potent form of acid. This first installment of a four-book series—with a fifth volume available for reference—takes readers from the early days of Too Cubed until they are poised for takeoff with a new bassist in tow. Like-minded souls Stan, Max, Bert and Trip rally behind Stan’s controlling nature. The eight man lineup, musically structured like the Grateful Dead, drops acid nonstop and endeavors to stretch musical boundaries while seeking collective enlightenment. Each of the four main characters is written with a distinct, stereotype-free personality, as is Olly, the Hawaiian drummer Stan encounters on vacation and coaxes into leaving paradise for the cold Massachusetts winter. Too much of the text, however, is given over to Grateful Dead shows, drug dealing and dropping acid; passages describing concerts, parties and hallucinations drag. But when the band members are allowed to roam the page, a wonderfully hypnotic narrative rhythm develops and it’s hard to put the book down. While there’s not much at stake for the band—small problems are glossed over and big ones dealt with by a literal stroll on thin ice—it’s clear the next volume will pick up where this one ends. The unconventional novelistic structure is as gleefully loose and laid back as the band whose story it tells. Seasoned veterans of the psychedelic music scene may see parallels to modern-day band Phish but the heavy drug use may turn off outsiders.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2011

ISBN: 978-0984598106

Page Count: 394

Publisher: Lonna Mae Enterprises

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
TOO CUBED UNAUTHORIZED
by Lonna Mae

- BOOK REVIEW
TOO CUBED UNAUTHORIZED
by Lonna Mae

- BOOK REVIEW
TOO CUBED UNAUTHORIZED
by Lonna Mae

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.