Another meticulously researched, intense, mesmerizing novel (based in some part on a 1986 short story) for readers seeking...
Contemporary/historical alien-contact tale, from the author of the magnificent The Wreck of the River of Stars (2003).
Theoretical physicist Sharon Nagy ponders a new, non-isotropic, 12-dimensional space-time structure, while her live-in significant other, historical-mathematician Tom Schwoerin, studies medieval German settlement patterns. Tom wonders why the Black Forest village Eifelheim wasn’t resettled following a deadly outbreak of the Black Death in 1349; according to all his computer simulations, it should have been. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, we learn what actually occurred in Eifelheim in the months before the “pest” arrived: An alien vessel crash-landed in the forest. The vessel’s occupants, the giant-grasshopper-like Krenken, were traveling via interdimensional wormhole rather than space when disaster struck. They soon learn to communicate with the villagers via their “talking head” and eventually swear fealty to the village’s lord, Herr Manfred. Led by the example of pastor Dietrich, a philosopher and scholar, the majority of the villagers come to accept the Krenken as God’s fellow-creatures rather than demons, which they resemble. However, despite all efforts, the village gains a reputation as the haunt of devils. As the Black Death spreads through France and western Germany, Krenken children begin to die, Earth food lacking an amino acid essential to their diet. Tom learns that once Eifelheim was abandoned, its reputation for evil intensified to the point where entire armies avoided the place. As Dietrich confronts the Black Death, Tom puzzles over 14th-century stained-glass windows that depict giant grasshoppers, and Sharon studies a page from an illuminated manuscript that reminds her of—a circuit diagram?
Another meticulously researched, intense, mesmerizing novel (based in some part on a 1986 short story) for readers seeking thoughtful science fiction of the highest order.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-30096-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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