Wicked smart sci-fi action on a Wagnerian scale.
The second part of the Brilliance trilogy, in which Sakey (Brilliance, 2013, etc.) turns the action up to 11 and blows lots of things up.
To recap: we live in a world where 1 percent of the world’s children are born with superhuman gifts; some of these “abnorms” or “twists” are good guys and some of them are bad guys. Federal agent Nick Cooper thinks he’s a good guy, using his gift for predicative response to track down terrorist John Smith. But his discovery of a government conspiracy to demonize abnorms by blaming them for an act of terrorism led him to toss his boss off a building at the end of the last book. Now Cooper, along with his companion Shannon Azzi, is tasked by President Lionel Clay with helping him hold the fraying world together. Unlucky for Cooper, there are lots of new players on the scene, all of whom have different visions of the "better world" of the title. Out in the desert, a wealthy abnorm named Erik Epstein builds an Israel-like retreat for his people called the New Canaan Holdfast. In middle America, a new terrorist faction called the Children of Darwin is starving out Tulsa, Fresno, and Cleveland by blowing up food stores and murdering truck drivers. Dr. Abraham Couzen, a mad scientist, has disappeared with what may just be the cure for brilliance, a potential wrinkle that is far more dangerous than it seems. It sounds like a lot to juggle, but Sakey’s execution of a complex plot combined with cinematic style is superb. Sakey even manages to produce a James Bond–level villain whose “gift” is experiencing the passage of time faster than those around him—which makes him the perfect, deadly foil to Cooper. “His name is Soren Johansen,” says Smith by way of introduction. “He’s the most dangerous person I’ve ever met....And my oldest friend.” This is a top-notch entry in a franchise that’s already destined for the movies.
Wicked smart sci-fi action on a Wagnerian scale.Pub Date: June 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4778-2394-1
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2015
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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