An appealing fictionalization of the mysteries surrounding humanity’s desire to communicate with aliens.
A quest to find life elsewhere in the cosmos causes trouble on Earth in this sci-fi sequel from Bangs (Forsaken, 2011).
As he prepares to complete his journey from Los Angeles to Adelaide, Jarrod McKinley cannot seem to shake the “sense of evil” that seems to prevail. McKinley, who in the previous novel in this series helped to unravel a conspiracy fomented by a hypocritical reverend, now heads to Australia to examine a message purportedly from outer space. Galactic dispatches are, after all, the stuff that concerns McKinley and his colleagues at the center for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, located at the breathtaking site of Wilpena Pound in South Australia. McKinley is eager to get there as this message mentions him specifically. Unfortunately for him, his fears are proven correct as he is kidnapped not long after disembarking from his flight. Though his captors wind up being more empathetic than he might have expected, why would aliens try to contact McKinley? As the plot unfolds, it includes aspects of McKinley’s growing ability to sense evil and many of the implications of uncovering life elsewhere in the universe (for example, how destructive would humans appear to a distant civilization?). Bangs delivers plenty of physical confrontations as well, although action sequences can lean toward the silly. This is the case when a boomerang partially diffuses a struggle (what else would one expect in Australia?), leaving a character “still rubbing his head” once the danger subsides. But McKinley’s adventures help to breathe new excitement into the hunt for aliens and all of the possibilities for actual contact. Who knew such an enticing, if sedentary, mission to listen to beings unknown could result in kidnapping, murder, shady characters, an unlikely hero (one villain describes McKinley as “just an overrated, low-level technician who got in over his head”), and all sorts of violent clashes? On the whole, readers intrigued by McKinley’s motivation to discover extraterrestrials will likely be eager to see how it all shakes out.
An appealing fictionalization of the mysteries surrounding humanity’s desire to communicate with aliens.Pub Date: June 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-943650-27-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Bookcrafters
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
A super-exorcism that leaves the taste of somebody else's blood in your mouth and what a bad taste it is. King presents us with the riddle of a small Maine town that has been deserted overnight. Where did all the down-Easters go? Matter of fact, they're still there but they only get up at sundown. . . for a warm drink. . . .Ben Mears, a novelist, returns to Salem's Lot (pop. 1319), the hometown he hasn't seen since he was four years old, where he falls for a young painter who admires his books (what happens to her shouldn't happen to a Martian). Odd things are manifested. Someone rents the ghastly old Marsten mansion, closed since a horrible double murder-suicide in 1939; a dog is found impaled on a spiked fence; a healthy boy dies of anemia in one week and his brother vanishes. Ben displays tremendous calm considering that you're left to face a corpse that sits up after an autopsy and sinks its fangs into the coroner's neck. . . . Vampirism, necrophilia, et dreadful alia rather overplayed by the author of Carrie (1974).
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1975
ISBN: 0385007515
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1975
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