A fast-paced adventure involving dinosaurs that should appeal to creationists.
In this debut YA novel, a time traveler discovers that the Ice Age occurred several thousand years ago, matching the biblical account of Creation.
Bill Abrams is a scientist who aims to prove the Earth’s true age and development via his invention, a time machine he dubs the Light Assimilator, propelled by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. He questions the current scientific consensus that the Earth is billions of years old: “I am beginning to believe that man, dinosaurs, and even trilobites lived together on this planet surrounded by a tropical haven until something catastrophic happened.” Abrams travels to 2351 B.C.E. and discovers that the Earth is one giant continent, Saudi Arabia is a massive jungle, and a solid band of water is “located at the edge of outer space where the ozone layer is today.” In between some exploits and narrow escapes, Abrams documents his findings—including dinosaurs and Noah’s Ark. Sadly, all his evidence is lost when Halley’s Comet disrupts the water belt, causing a great flood. Now convinced that Genesis is true, Abrams decides: “I must also believe in the remainder of the Scriptures,” including the New Testament, and is converted to Christianity. Though he returns to the present, the government gets involved, suppressing this new knowledge—for now. In his novel, Leonard offers a fast-moving, Jules Verne–like story with dangers, escapes, and dinosaurs. It’s backed by science-ish explanations; for example, ultraviolet rays act like a magnet somehow to propel the craft. This detail is perplexing, though—why isn’t the time machine just drawn straight into the sun? Even more controversial, for the science-minded, is the tale’s evidence for Abrams’ theories—including that dinosaurs, trilobites, and humans lived together on Earth—for which it is easy to find, for those who care to look on the internet, well-reasoned debunking. (A short creationist bibliography is included.) Leonard also repeatedly identifies Abrams as an archaeologist, though he performs climate science and wrote his thesis on radiation propulsion. The author’s insistence that early humans were all light-skinned, together with Abrams’ conversion to Christianity, may also bother some readers.
A fast-paced adventure involving dinosaurs that should appeal to creationists.Pub Date: May 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4908-7300-8
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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