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THE SLOW KILL

Name: THE SLOW KILL
Author: Nancy Smith
ISBN: 978-0991390700

by Nancy Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2014

A solemn look at the disasters that humans visit upon themselves.

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Smith’s dystopian debut conjures a scorched future in which salvation lies under a dome—or does it?

It’s 2025, and water is scarce. This is a natural state of affairs for Austin, Texas, but things have progressed past normal; a drought has sunk its claws into the city, even as other parts of the country drown under flooding rains. Dr. Frank Harvey, a botanist, has an idea that might get things back on track: a pipeline that would bring water from the flooded areas to the parched deserts of the state. The residents would then have their own lake, orchards and hydroponic farms. Frank’s boss and source of funding, Pierce Wagner, suggests enclosing the area in a glass dome so the crops will be safe from the elements. However, once implemented, the plan leads to a split between haves and have-nots, particularly when Wagner decides to lock the dome and cut off access to outsiders. Frank desperately tries to convince his ex-wife Etta to move into the dome with him and bring their 6-year-old son, Alex, but Etta can’t forgive herself for things that happened before their split and decides to stay outside. Ten years later, Alex is angry at his father for abandoning them, and although he steals food continuously, Etta is slowly starving to death outside the dome. When the computer network that dominates both communities is hacked, tensions come to a boil and revolution seems imminent. Smith deftly reveals Frank’s sense of disconnection, exacerbated by the privileged lives that people live in the dome. As the story intercuts between Frank’s and Alex’s personal turmoils, there’s plenty of timely social commentary, but it avoids ever feeling preachy. That said, the novel feels oddly glib at times; it’s a slim book, and Smith races through the plot so quickly that few events leave memorable impressions. Ultimately, though, the book ably fulfills the purpose of the environmental science-fiction genre: to warn present society about what could happen if it doesn’t take responsibility for its future.

A solemn look at the disasters that humans visit upon themselves.

Pub Date: March 19, 2014

ISBN: 978-0991390700

Page Count: 240

Publisher: First Look

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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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.