by Mark Lingane ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 27, 2017
Sci-fi readers must brave a steep learning curve to venture down this series that promises black holes and dark matter (in...
Military madmen, freedom fighters, and superpowered children contend with the fulfillment of an apocalyptic prophecy on an Earth warped by alien attacks.
Lingane (Tesla Evolution, 2017, etc.) begins the Hadron Damnation sci-fi series hundreds of years into the future in the midst of an ongoing war between humankind and inscrutable parasitelike aliens. What’s left of humanity has painfully adapted, going underground under the jackboot of a military regime called the Command. Earth above is a scorched, irradiated wasteland prowled by mutants, outcast rebels, and rogue invaders (who, even when dead, wear robot exoskeletons capable of continuing their attacks). While a “Master Scientist” four centuries ago made promising advances with (suspiciously abandoned) programs of reverse-engineered alien tech, the preferred strategy of the Command is gathering intel via the cruel “Celebration” ritual, a deadly bending of time and space in which specially bred (and doomed) children exposed to the “Omega,” a captive black hole, glimpse the future. When a key prophecy begins to unfold, psychotic Gen. Grove uses the circumstances—and a pair of supernaturally gifted young people—in his own mad gambit for power and potential immortality. But, in the mucking about with the universe, alternative timelines shift like sand, leaving characters (not to mention readers) not sure quite what’s going on. “I’m filing that under incomprehensibly unbelievable,” says the macho, alcoholic, professionally and personally disgraced pilot Virgil, a misfit hero whose strenuous fight against Grove tends to morph into something like a Marvel Comics–superhero showdown or Japanese anime (the presence of mystic demigodlike adolescents among the vividly drawn characters and operatic violence fits right in with multivolume sci-fi cartoon sagas about mecha suits and science ninjas). Several mind flips throughout, right up to the to-be-continued last pages, pull the quantum rug out from under the narrative. Or as someone comments, “Reality is a bit unpredictable at the moment.” Lingane cleverly references Arthur C. Clarke at one point, though that genre grandmaster was always a lot clearer.
Sci-fi readers must brave a steep learning curve to venture down this series that promises black holes and dark matter (in every sense).Pub Date: April 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9946164-5-6
Page Count: 444
Publisher: Insync Books
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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