A galactic trek for fans of poetic, experimental tales; other sci-fi fanciers may wish to stick with the likes of Luke and...
A debut novel examines a striking spacegoing alliance and the efforts of a starship crew to explore a new planet—despite the inconvenience of a pirate attack.
A bit under two centuries from now, Homo sapiens navigate the stars in benevolent Gene Roddenberry fashion, accompanied by alien cohorts (“Xeno sapiens”) and software-based intelligence (“Techno sapiens”). But the nested, concentric-circle starship Patchen (named for a real-life Ohio poet, betraying the author’s Cleveland origins) falls prey to space pirates, resulting in a handful of crew members becoming marooned on a “rare walnut shaped world” known as Tar’Karchi to its inhabitants. The denizens are a race of multiarmed humanoids, not technologically advanced but civilized enough, with variant species who tunnel, swim, or fly. The steadfast Patchen refugees persevere—chiefly thanks to peripatetic officer SumWon, whose duties include placating the natives with gifts of fancy clocks. Respecting local customs, arts, and literature (and not above taking extraterrestrial lovers), the visitors explore Tar’Karchi, prep its friendly folk for membership in their “InterSpace” alliance, and muster a counterattack on those nasty pirates. While there are poetic descriptions in these pages, the prose can be challenging: “Fifty degrees ahead of the Galactic Bar Meridian, between the dominating tentacle of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm at 15,000 lightyears out and the tail of the Perseus Arm at 30,000 lightyears out with the frill of the Sagittarius Arm halfway from the Scutum-Centaurus Arm inside it, the solar system sinuates its epic drain-circling orbit, currently in the heart of the Orion Spur, galactic love dart of the beautiful space slug.” If readers can get past that introductory sentence (and lots more of the same), then this experimental sci-fi, Robinson-ade story from pseudonymous author Biloid (poet and comix creator Will Napoli) will be to their grokking. The easygoing narrative provides the author with opportunities for deep dives into word invention, alphanumeric fun, and multiple genre shoutouts (he deftly pays tribute to Love and Rockets and Robert Heinlein in just a few paragraphs). More playful in tone than pitilessly self-indulgent, the slim novel is followed by appendices on Biloid’s eccentric planetary taxonomies, “jumpstone” drive technology, alt-calendars, and “vispo” (visual poetry), with a note that he’s thought these things through for further literary projects set in a self-referential multiverse.
A galactic trek for fans of poetic, experimental tales; other sci-fi fanciers may wish to stick with the likes of Luke and Leia.Pub Date: May 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-981077-54-0
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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
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