An intellectual, stylish, and brisk sci-fi tale.
A debut novel follows two characters in their own time periods who are each outfitted with a potent object.
In late 17th-century England, Elizabeth’s mathematician father, Owens Blake, trusts her to deliver a package to Sir Isaac Newton. But she turns around after spotting strangers heading in the direction of her farm. She discovers the family property in flames, her mother and little brother gone, and her father dead. According to a farmhand, Owens had refused to reveal to the strangers the location of a particular item. Elizabeth later unwraps the package and a device inside activates, surprisingly attaching itself to her back. In 2018 Canada, Mikael heads to Bryo, a research lab, for an internship but instead becomes an unwitting participant in an experiment: His spinal cord is replaced with an unusual object. Luckily, a doctor helps him escape the lab and explains that the device allows Mikael to “influence the laws of physics.” Both he and Elizabeth are pursued by nefarious groups that resort to lethal means to retrieve the item. Meanwhile, the superpowered protagonists slowly master new skills, like subverting gravity and effectively walking on the ceiling. Olejarz’s clever and entertaining series opener is rife with intelligent notions often relayed in layperson’s terms without oversimplification. Manipulating fundamental forces, for example, may stem from a “mysterious energy” or an unknown element that surrounds everything. The author alternates between time periods with ease, with the storylines’ similarities (for example, the two protagonists dodging baddies and likely using the same object) giving the overall plot cohesion. Intermittent displays of the device’s capabilities fuel the narrative’s momentum while descriptions are occasionally lyrical: “Science is a lighthouse in a fog filled with beliefs.” Subsequent installments of the sci-fi series will hopefully address the device’s specific origin and perhaps reveal a stronger connection between the two protagonists and time periods other than the enigmatic object.
An intellectual, stylish, and brisk sci-fi tale.Pub Date: April 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77528-223-5
Page Count: 327
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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