A detailed, thought-provoking read for rational beings the world over.
Rosen’s (Return to Roswell, 2012) sequel determines whether humanity’s face-to-face contact with an alien race will lead to enlightenment or destruction.
After being captured and later released by the U.S. government for his role in trying to expose the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico (as seen in the previous installment), Washington Post photographer Casey Foster is now a celebrity. President Barack Obama has beamed out an invitation for the aliens to visit Earth, and humanity awaits their arrival. Casey and his girlfriend, newly minted Post writer Leah Anne Bailey, have secured positions as chroniclers of the historic meeting as it unfolds. The aliens, known as the Redexians, travel the galaxy in a vast mother ship and hope to retrieve a pair of extraterrestrial explorers who crashed in Roswell—and subsequently died. When Capt. Oulah IV requests that four humans visit the mother ship, Casey and Leah Anne are perfect choices; Israeli diplomat Jacob R.T. Witwenova and Chinese Col. Chloe Anh Sing join them. The CIA trains the quartet in spycraft so that they may learn all they can about the Redexians’ technology, as well as their true intentions toward Earth. Although everyone hopes for the best, they prepare for the worst—which would mean the Redexians enslaving or annihilating mankind. Author Rosen provides a prologue summarizing the previous volume before diving into a world shaken by the reality of extraterrestrial intelligence. He offers immensely detailed scenes in which world leaders, including President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, plan and execute the world’s response. The narrative optimistically surmises that there’s a “blank slate...to write a safe chapter of first interactions between different species from different worlds.” It balances thoroughly researched space travel science with quirky humor, as in a scene in which Capt. Oulah wears “powder blue lounging attire” and “fluffy green slippers.” Although Rosen does tend to pad his prose with time-worn phrases (“Time to roll the bones. Long live the Queen,” thinks a British ambassador), his surprising—and hilarious—solution to Earth’s ills will leave readers feeling hopeful.
A detailed, thought-provoking read for rational beings the world over.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-98-828075-5
Page Count: 239
Publisher: Silver Alien Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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