Sci-fi veteran Sawyer (WWW: Wonder, 2011, etc.) turns in a solid if bland techno-thriller, which hums along nicely until an absurd mystical finale.
A few years in the future, America is under siege from terrorist attacks, which have struck major cities including Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. As the president prepares to address the nation from the Lincoln Memorial, a would-be assassin strikes, and the president is rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. While surgeons work to save the president’s life, a research scientist in the same building conducts memory experiments on a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder using a radical new technique. These two events become intertwined when a bomb goes off at the White House, sending out an electromagnetic pulse that amplifies the scientist’s equipment and creates mental linkages among 20 people in the hospital. Each person can now access the memories of one other person, and the Secret Service must protect national security by discovering who is linked to the president. That quest takes up most of the first half of the book, with breaks to examine how the memory linkages have affected various other characters. The eventual answer is a little predictable and anticlimactic, however, and the book’s political-thriller aspects are unexceptional. Sawyer’s writing is functional and colorless, but his characters are engaging enough that seeing how they deal with their newfound memories is engrossing. The story barrels forward quickly with a number of mini-cliffhangers, but by the end Sawyer drops almost all of the lingering plot questions in favor of a rushed, preachy resolution. It negates pretty much all of the interesting scientific concepts he’s raised, substituting in a pseudo-religious awakening that magically solves all of the characters’ problems (as well as humanity’s).
Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-16-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
This gorgeous novel is a must for more than just Tolkien fanatics.
Christopher Tolkien presents the final piece in a trilogy of Middle-earth stories his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, did not live to see published.
In what he assures us is the last installment, Tolkien returns to edit his father's work (Beren and Lúthien, 2017, etc.), this time with the tale of the secret city of Gondolin. Ulmo, the great sea god, visits a wanderer named Tuor and tells him his destiny: "O Tuor of the lonely heart, I will not that thou dwell for ever in fair places of birds and flowers....Now must thou seek through the lands for the city of the folk called Gondothlim or the dwellers in stone, and the Noldoli shall escort thee thither in secret for fear of the spies of Melko." Tuor makes it to Gondolin, where he marries the king's daughter and has a son, Eärendel. Meanwhile, the evil Melko, whom Ulmo was so worried about, is scheming to find the hidden city and destroy it. When the city's location is given up in "the most infamous treachery in the history of Middle-earth," a great battle ensues, and despite Tuor's valor, Gondolin falls. The history of Middle-earth is so intricately detailed and fully imagined, readers are lucky indeed that Christopher Tolkien is such an excellent editor. With a full glossary, additional notes, a family tree, and a list of names with descriptions, it is easy to keep track of who is whose son (Lord of the Rings fans will be pleased to note that Eärendel is Elrond's father) and which races of elves and orcs and goblins are which and live where. Tolkien also takes great care to explain where each version of the story comes from and pieces together its evolution, giving much-needed context. All this makes it easy to enjoy the tale itself, which is beautifully written, with lyrical descriptions of Ulmo, Gondolin, and even the dragons and Balrogs that devastate the city. Even the battle sequences are somehow lovely. The tone here is more like a fairy tale than the main Ring cycle, which is perfectly suited to its shorter length.
This gorgeous novel is a must for more than just Tolkien fanatics.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-61304-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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