This far-future odyssey, with its life-sized characters and unintelligible aliens, embellishes much while explaining little...
The sequel to Spin (2005), Wilson’s surpassingly strange yarn involves advanced alien Hypotheticals that, for reasons beyond speculation, moved Earth four-billion years into the future.
Advanced biological techniques, including the means to prolong life by 30 years, were developed; those so treated became known as Fourths. And a huge space-warp Arch connects Earth to another habitable planet, Equatoria. Lise Adams comes to Equatoria to learn the fate of her father, Robert, a Fourth who vanished a decade ago. She hooks up with well-connected pilot and drifter Turk Findley, who asks old friend Tomas Ginn, another Fourth, about Robert. As an astonishing fall of ash from space, containing pieces of degenerating Hypothetical machines, coats the ground, Ginn vanishes. Lise learns that her ex-husband, Brian Gately, who works for the Department of Genomic Security, a sort of genetic CIA accountable to nobody, has had her followed. A second ash fall follows and grows into weird quasi-organic structures. Meanwhile, in an isolated desert community, Dr. Avram Dvali has performed a dangerous experiment, attempting to create a human capable of communicating with the Hypotheticals. The result is Isaac, a strange child with an odd affinity for the Hypothetical structures and an ability to detect something buried deep beneath the desert. As Lise loses her trust in Brian, and she and Turk try to evade capture by the DGS, Brian ponders photographs of Ginn’s mutilated corpse and wonders what his superiors really want.
This far-future odyssey, with its life-sized characters and unintelligible aliens, embellishes much while explaining little and ends up equally engrossing and exasperating.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7653-0939-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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