A sparkling sequence of tales that bends and flips familiar ideas and fantastic visions.
Divergent characters find themselves in startling situations in this debut collection of unconventional sci-fi and fantasy stories.
There is no guiding principle running through these tales save that they all look beyond the world as readers discern it, challenging—as the best speculative fiction does—a number of preconceived notions. Some might think that the relatable would be difficult to discover in a story about a lonely robot raising orphaned dinosaurs or two friends becoming cut off from each other by the untimely, unexpected closing of doors between worlds, but that dismissal would be premature. While each tale asks readers to forget what they know of the cosmos, identity, gender, or the ordinary, that request comes not in order to fill their minds with convoluted new concepts but rather to twist basic facts into inventive shapes. Someone accidentally cursed to be reborn as a rose sheds light on the symbols readers choose for their affections and how they value them. A non–fairy tale about a girl and a monster she once knew gives readers the ability to overturn the scripts of their own lives and realize who they—and their friends—truly are, however they might be judged. A shadow cast from inside a black hole peels away layers of loss and grief. And “How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps,” centered on longing, tells a surprising, touching tale about those who fail to fit in and how they can carve out spaces of their own. There’s a tremendous variety in these stories: long and short, happy and sad, taking twists and turns or running in blazing straight lines. But what they all have in common is a sense of wonder (“The moment I knew I could love this robot was when the robot asked what I would like to be called. ‘Tesla,’ I said, and the blue LED smiley face in the upper corner of the robot’s screen flickered in a shy smile”). There is a strange power in the realms beyond this universe or hidden in plain sight, and Rustad captures it from myriad angles. The circumstances may be bizarre, but the characters are blindingly real, and it’s only through that combination that these pieces can cut so unflinchingly to the heart.
A sparkling sequence of tales that bends and flips familiar ideas and fantastic visions.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-59021-641-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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