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
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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