A satisfying wrap-up to a multispecies sci-fi saga that delivers plenty of aliens and clashes.
Humans and alien exiles must cooperate and mount a defense of Earth when hostile forces penetrate the solar system.
Wood (The Hoo-Lii Chronicles, 2019, etc.) concludes his Clash of the Aliens pentalogy with a military-diplomatic sci-fi novel. Newbies beware: Readers are presumed to be intimate with all four earlier volumes. Humanity has rebounded from a global nuclear war as spacefarers, thanks to hardworking survivors like Cleveland-area engineer Taylor MacPherson and timely technology copied from the Qu’uda, a salamanderlike, advanced alien race. Their stratified, xenophobic society led an interstellar exploratory team to abandon part of a Qu’uda expedition on semi-anarchic Earth. But more visitors have arrived—the insectoid Hoo-Lii, a hivelike matriarchy, personified by the imperious queen Suh-Joh. When her battle-damaged scout craft was welcomed without violence by Earth in previous narratives, Suh-Joh’s cultural point of view led her to the conclusion that the natives were unconditionally submitting to her as “new servants.” But there are far worse first contact problems. Suh-Joh is pursued under a death sentence by her fellow Hoo-Lii as a dangerous “heretic” and armadas of warships from their home world are on an attack vector for Earth. Meanwhile, MacPherson and his allies in the Space Force are under siege by homegrown political hacks. Backed by Chinese imperialist warlords who parrot Maoist propaganda of yesteryear, they are trying to force MacPherson and his pragmatic pals (human and alien) out of power. In this fast-paced, lively, and enjoyable finale, Wood offers a wide array of intrigues, battles, and retreats. MacPherson and numerous resourceful supporting characters whom series followers have come to know tend to blur in the whirlwind, and some significant names just seem to drop out altogether (or are killed in action without comment). But the author finds the breathing space—just barely—to deftly convey through various ET and human dialogues the bewilderment and ultimate Starfleet/Federation-esque good sense shown by three vastly different intelligent species learning to get along, despite their disagreements and misunderstandings.
A satisfying wrap-up to a multispecies sci-fi saga that delivers plenty of aliens and clashes.Pub Date: April 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-387-60262-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Faucett Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2019
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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