Fans of the author’s popular novel 14 (2012) will want to pay particular attention, as these shared universes share other...
A schoolteacher with unusual gifts is recruited by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects division to investigate a troubled project.
There’s a great big bait and switch in the middle of this sci-fi thriller by Clines (Ex-Purgatory, 2014, etc.), but it’s unlikely to deter readers intrigued by its full-on Michael Crichton–esque premise. Our hero is Leland “Mike” Erikson, whom we meet quietly teaching the last day of a high school English class in Maine. We soon learn that Mike is one of those gifted people who's chosen to walk away from his talents, but his gifts are particularly thorny. Not only is he a certified genius, but he also got a bonus: an eidetic memory. “I’ve got...complete, instantaneous recall of anything I’ve ever seen or heard,” he explains. Mike is intrigued by an offer from his childhood friend Reggie Magnus, who's now the head honcho for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A team of six DARPA scientists working on a small campus near San Diego appears to have created a working teleportation device dubbed “The Albuquerque Door,” and Reggie asks Mike to see if it’s bogus or not. There’s definitely Weird Stuff going on. One team member returns from the portal convinced that his wife has been replaced with a stranger. Another comes through the portal with fatal wounds and massive radiation burns. Mike discovers that the team’s math is largely based on the work of an obscure, possibly insane Russian scientist named Aleksander Koturovic. There are some leaps of faith to be made—why would the government limit access to a universe-changing technology to six scientists and a schoolteacher? But fans of Clines’ colorful fantasy novels will happily follow him into the Lovecraft-ian nightmare that follows.
Fans of the author’s popular novel 14 (2012) will want to pay particular attention, as these shared universes share other horrors as well.Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-41829-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Romantic fantasy from the author of Freedom's Landing (1995), etc. When wise old Mangan, the Regent of Esphania, dies, many of his skills and qualities seem to have been transferred to his beautiful and intelligent cat, Niffy, who at once attaches herself to the new ruler, Prince Jamas. Egdril, the bluff, hearty king of the neighboring kingdom of Mauritia, seems keen to forge an alliance with Jamas, allowing the prince to marry his niece, Willow—but the real danger is Yasmin, Egdril's wicked wife, who poisons everyone she dislikes or suspects of interfering with her ambitions. So Niffy must guide Jamas through a thicket of difficulties to save the prince and the principality. But by this time Yasmin has murdered Egdril and made her monstrous infant son heir; somehow, Jamas and Niffy must stop her if evil is not to triumph. Thin and brief but quite appealing; McCaffrey is, as always, pleasant company.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-451-45578-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: ROC/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
A hardcover debut from the author of numerous fantasy paperbacks (The Soulsmith trilogy, etc.). During a hurricane in Ireland, resident American writer Kevin Mauney is visited by a selkie (a were-seal), who conveys an urgent message requesting his presence in Aztlan Free Zone, Mexico. In Aztlan, meanwhile, Cherokee diplomat and native dancer Thunderbird O'Connor stumbles upon a dying man, skinned alive and abandoned on the beach. Also in Aztlan, Carolyn Mauney-Griffith, Kevin's biologist sister, investigates a baffling mass beaching of dolphins, who seem to have been attacked by killer whales. As Kevin hotfoots it to Aztlan, Thunderbird is assaulted by were-orcas clad in human skins, while Cary drowns—then, impossibly, returns to life. What's going on? Well, it transpires that rebellious young were-orcas have decided to attack humanity by first exterminating its allies, the dolphins; the latter's magicians have thought up a plan, involving the three humans, to combat the evil whales. Some readers—the younger and more credulous section of the audience—may find the snappy, briny antics here exhilarating; the far-fetched multiplicity of were-things will strike many others as just plain daft.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-13716-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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