An uneven fantasy tale of jealousy and war that would have benefited from a clearer timeline.
Two California scientists become entangled in an ancient war between supernatural beings in Watson’s (Annie Aimright, 2018, etc.) fantasy thriller.
Vaylin Oshiro, a Stanford University student, calls his crush, Fierra Thames, after their first-semester finals (and a few months of intimacy); he asks her thoughts on love, and she responds that she doesn’t believe in it. However, when he starts seeing artist Arianna, whom he later marries, Fierra is filled with jealousy. Years later, while Vaylin and Fierra are working at Xeradyne Lab, Arianna dies in a car crash, along with their unborn child. Devastated, he eventually tries to take his own life. Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, he stumbles into an art exhibition and finally ends up at the house of the artist, Chrystas Krueger. They engage in interesting conversation and drink chilled vodka, and Chrystas does a sketch of Vaylin. Then she suddenly sinks her fangs into his neck, turning him into a blood-craving vampire. He tells Fierra, who’s fascinated by the research potential in studying a vampire’s genetic markers, so Vaylin agrees to infect her, as well. For Fierra, killing comes easy, and her complex plans to gain power catch the attention of centuries-old vampires, who enlist her help to rule all the covens. Soon, Fierra and Vaylin are on different sides in a war between vampires and a group of shape-shifters. Watson’s fantasy starts strong, recounting both Fierra’s and Vaylin’s relationships with their single parents. As the story goes on, however, the sometimes-abrupt changes in time period and location may cause confusion. Watson’s writing is fluid, and his dream sequences, in particular, flow with precision. In one scene, for example, Fierra dreams of the potential success of her research: “The fluttering dollars merged together and morphed into a great black bat….Fierra beheld its widening eyes as her dream replaced its face with Vaylin’s. Vaylin’s dreamy doppelgänger bit the woman and every church bell throughout Rome tolled.” A cliffhanger ending leaves potential for a sequel.
An uneven fantasy tale of jealousy and war that would have benefited from a clearer timeline.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-71792-096-6
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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