An imaginative and engrossing tale that’s full of drama, tension, and gripping what-if questions.
After preventing 9/11, time travelers must again change the past to alter the outcome of Wounded Knee in this SF sequel.
In Book 1, Maj. Kyle Mason—heartbroken after his beautiful, accomplished wife, Padma Mahajan, was killed in the 9/11 attacks—was recruited in 2008 for a very secret mission to go back in time and stop the strikes. But problems arose, and a desperate Kyle turned to the one reliable partner he could find in 2001: himself. Though successful, Kyle 2001 died in the process. Unable to leave Padma, Kyle 2008 stayed in 2001, becoming the reclusive “Anderson Wild.” By Timeline 002 2008, Padma has parlayed her financial genius and Kyle’s knowledge of coming events into a trillion-dollar fortune, all the political power she can buy, and control of the Time Tunnel underground research complex, called Dreamland. Meanwhile, Texas Sen. Jonah Jones gathers a private army and takes over the U.S. government, with Dreamland in his sights. Padma and Kyle must use the Time Tunnel to escape. Though they aim for San Francisco and the Summer of Love, they land in South Dakota, 1890, in a Lakota village—just a few months before the massacre of Wounded Knee, as Kyle realizes from his studies. Though Kyle and Padma agree they must prevent the massacre, complications—and unintended consequences—arise, with world-changing implications. In this second installment of a series, Todd (Time Tunnel: The Twin Towers, 2019) continues exploring the intriguing possibilities of time travel, backing up his speculations with well-researched history and believable science. Though adept at setting up exciting, tense confrontations, the author is also a thoughtful writer, and his characters are appropriately vulnerable, though Padma is hailed as the messiah of Lakota prophecy and Kyle has modern weaponry. Todd’s Lakota camp and the town of Deadwood come vividly alive with well-chosen, telling details such as the checkerboard that sits atop a general store’s cracker barrel. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for the next volume.
An imaginative and engrossing tale that’s full of drama, tension, and gripping what-if questions.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73319-360-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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