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FLIGHT 39

Name: FLIGHT 39
Author: Phillip P. Peterson
ISBN: 978-1-987580-76-1

by Phillip P. Peterson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 2018

A well-executed time-travel tale.

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A sci-fi novel tells the story of a pilot sent back to 1939 on a very special mission.

Christoph Wilder is an amazing pilot, as he proves during an emergency landing after losing two engines of his trans-Atlantic passenger jet. Christoph should be a hero, but instead he’s blamed for the death of an elderly passenger, just like his son continues to hold him responsible for the death of his wife in a car accident. When his airline grounds him for good, Christoph takes a vague job with the German Aerospace Center. He learns that his new bosses have developed time-travel technology and plan to try it out in small increments—going back no more than 24 hours in the past. But during the first test run, the plane is hijacked by Christoph’s co-pilot, who has other plans for how to use the breakthrough: “Our destination is November 7, 1939….We will kill Adolf Hitler!” The temptation to avert the worst war in human history may be strong, but what will the effect be on the present? How does this scheme relate to a simultaneous narrative about a man named Herbert Steinmann living in a bunker on some alternative, nuclear-ravaged Earth? And, if he survives all of this, can Christoph harness the technology to reverse the worst event of his own timeline, the accident that killed his wife? Peterson (Paradox 2, 2018, etc.) writes in a polished, muscular prose that replicates the calm, pragmatic voice of his pilot protagonist: “Christoph knew that with the waves of the North Atlantic, they had no chance of landing the huge aircraft….The wings would be torn off, the cabin would overturn and the wreckage, with the passengers still strapped in their seats, would sink like a stone.” The author takes a while getting to the novel’s main action, though this gives him time to assemble the backstories of Christoph and the other characters. The book is more thoughtful than its simple premise suggests, and while the plot follows the typical time-travel narrative arc, Peterson does a good enough job hiding the ball that the twists feel satisfying.

A well-executed time-travel tale.

Pub Date: April 3, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-987580-76-1

Page Count: 260

Publisher: Time Tunnel Media

Review Posted Online: July 25, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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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.).