An exciting, well-written and compassionate eco-thriller with real heroes and a mission worth caring about.
An American biospherist and a Chinese nanoengineer risk everything to save Earth’s climate in this thriller set 40 years in the future.
By 2050, Earth’s climate is in crisis. Increasing carbon dioxide levels have flooded coastlines, created deserts and worsened political instability. A few biospheres protect vanishing species, but even these preserves are threatened by corruption and graft. When biologist Tania Black is unexpectedly appointed Chief Biospherist to the U.N., she wonders if she can even make a difference. Tian Jie, a Chinese nanotechnologist, has invented a material that—if everything goes right—could make an enormous glasslike sun-shield in space, helping cool the Earth. Amid various dangers and with everything at stake, Tania and Jie (with help from supporters) risk their lives to bring the shield to reality. In his debut novel, Perren draws in the reader with a well-rounded, sympathetic set of characters grounded in an all-too-possible future world. Unlike many thrillers, what’s at stake is real; it matters right now as much as it will in 40 years. Climate change could be a preachy subject, but Perren’s characters are so lifelike that their issues are inseparable from the story, making for a deeply emotional, compelling read. Tania, Jie and friends (including Ruth, the redheaded Green Army member, and Rajit, a math genius) are distinct, funny and smart. Best of all, they’ve got heart. Jie is asked why he’s risking so much; does he have a hero complex? “Jie flexed his arm to show the lack of muscle. ‘A hero? I’m here because I have a 9-year-old son.’ ” Perren’s 2050 is also believable, with many well-thought-out technological and cultural details around the world and on the moon. Some items in this version of the future are intriguing, while some are appalling or amusing, like the ubiquitous burger chain that offers “deep-fried fiber flakes” that contain “zero percent of your daily nutrients.” Perren’s sense of humor helps balance the book’s serious concerns, and the well-explained science, including some helpful diagrams, respects the reader’s intelligence. Pacing, too, is well-handled, with events rushing to a finish that brings together several moving parts and packs an emotional punch.
An exciting, well-written and compassionate eco-thriller with real heroes and a mission worth caring about.Pub Date: June 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0987913609
Page Count: 329
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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