Focuses on a disappointingly small part of the epidemic, but digging into the virus’s genesis and design makes for a...
In the authors’ debut thriller, scientists worldwide are baffled when an apparent epidemic featuring strokelike symptoms can’t be traced to a virus or germ.
Studying humans’ longevity, CDC statistician Katie McMannloses is understandably upset when a couple of the women she’s been monitoring die. But the women were over 100 years old. What really gets Katie concerned is the unusually high rate of deaths among people 90 and over. The deaths seem to be the result of strokes, but in just a couple of days, the number of deaths in the U.S. hits a staggering 80,000. While scientists can’t find a virus or bacteria, Katie’s blood tests from the fatalities pinpoint six key markers. Katie surmises that what the CDC calls SDX, or “symptomatic disease unknown,” is somehow accelerating the aging process for internal organs, but she’s faced with another obstacle when she tests herself and learns she’s infected. So, too, are most others—except one negative: Katie and her husband Rob’s daughter, Hope. To find a cure, Katie desperately needs to locate another negative candidate before the world’s population is wiped out completely. Despite the global epidemic, the story is surprisingly small-scale, focusing mostly on Katie, her family and others at the CDC. This highlights the scientific approach and generates suspense as Katie tries to determine SDX’s origin and runs test after test in search of another person like Hope. The seemingly endless tests also slow down the plot considerably, and dialogue is filled with guesswork, theories or briefings—for people like the president—that often detail test results readers already know. Scenes with Katie at home with Rob and their three children help relieve the tension of the lab, while virus expert Dr. Ben Shah’s trip to Russia (SDX’s probable starting point) both expands the story beyond the U.S. and develops a supporting character; in fact, Ben’s former lover and daughter are over there. More traditional aspects of the thriller genre crop up late in the story, but they’re Katie-centric, including someone possibly following her and a potential threat on her life. The novel fares best when it sticks to the intercontinental ramifications, particularly in its powerful, dauntless coda.
Focuses on a disappointingly small part of the epidemic, but digging into the virus’s genesis and design makes for a riveting story.Pub Date: July 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990485414
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Rhino Air
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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