A sci-fi thriller in which a scientist struggles to protect his supercomputer while people at a Nevada facility are being killed.
Dr. Trevor Lennox is happy to get more funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for his computer lie detector known as MADRID, which stands for Machine-Aided Deception Recognition and Intent Detection. But when he’s assigned a co-lead named Cassie, he believes that DARPA has aspirations to boot him from the Pyramid Lake compound. And this is only the start: Scientists are murdered, his colleagues may be spying on him, and Trevor breaks protocol by using the artificial intelligence of his supercomputer, Frankenstein, to help his 7-year-old daughter, Amy, whose school fears that she may be troubled psychologically. After his ecological thriller (New Year Island, 2013), Draker has based his new novel in sci-fi, but he dabbles in multiple genres, including action and espionage, as even Trevor tiptoes around the facility at night and surreptitiously peruses others’ hard drives. Trevor is an alluring protagonist, both a genius with a doctoral degree and a physically adept fighter, most noticeably displayed when a man at a bar gives him grief for his apparent “geek” status; the man is a bloody mess after Trevor is finished with him. The murders unfold in the style of a whodunit as Trevor acquires a growing distrust of fellow scientists Blake, Kate and Roger, each with his or her own project. His relationships are deliciously complicated: He initiates a romance with Cassie but clearly still loves his ex-wife, Jen, and he verbally debases Roger, whom he considers a friend. Frankenstein progressively becomes more humanlike while retaining his automaton qualities—Trevor gets updates via his customized iPhone, which eventually sound like telephonic conversations, complete with Frankenstein’s whirring server fans’ eerie resemblance to a person breathing. The story ultimately hits recognizable terrain, and a few readers may predict its route, but the author’s voice is fresh, and numerous scenes, like a hilarious parody of the 1931 film Frankenstein, when Trevor sets himself up with Internet access during a storm, are welcomely outlandish. A familiar sci-fi tale but one that Draker paints in his own profound and original colors.
Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1940511061
Page Count: 426
Publisher: Mayhem Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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