An intriguing but uneven tale in search of how telepathy works.
Dangerous new technology is deployed in Britain to prove that telepathy is possible in this sci-fi debut.
The citizens of Exeter in southwest England have noticed a strange hum. It occurs daily and seems to give people headaches as well as cause them to hear sounds and see flashes of light. Many believe the new Energy Recovery Facility is the source. One witness to the mob demanding answers from the plant is the “Leather Jacket Man,” who’s experiencing increased voices in his head—yet he isn’t sure whom to blame. The truth is that Project Blue Crystal, based in the United States, has followed the intense signal of a telepathic receiver—whether it be a person or place—to Exeter. The project has set up an electromagnetic pulse generator, designed by Australian scientist Kingsley Khan, in a secure location unbeknown to the British government. Blue Crystal is also testing a quantum-entanglement machine, created by Canadian scientist Henning Horlicks, near the Cedars mental hospital. The group believes that people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality have great potential as telepathic receivers. Blue Crystal’s experiment grows more complicated when two security guards at Kingsley’s facility are struck down by the EM pulse. His superiors in the United States order him to shoot the fallen guards to cover up any harm done by the hum. Ridler’s novel explores the overlap between science and Eastern mysticism in that “blue is the colour of the throat chakra, and so is associated with clear communication.” While the Leather Jacket Man initially seems like an enthralling protagonist, the author puts Kingsley, Henning, and lawyer Julia Barnes in the spotlight instead. The strange events in Britain are placed in dramatic context by the line “Exeter will be the new Roswell.” And even though President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron frequently exchange stern words, the narrative tension falters when Ridler’s principal trio enjoys Exeter like tourists (test-driving an Aston Martin, for example). Overall, this story almost reads like a screenplay, with focused dialogue but choppy scene setting. Nevertheless, the central premise captivates and Exeter is portrayed attractively.
An intriguing but uneven tale in search of how telepathy works.Pub Date: March 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-984589-18-7
Page Count: 182
Publisher: XlibrisUK
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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