A twisty and exhilarating dystopian romp.
A small group of rebels in the near future plans a dangerous mission to liberate the population from behavior-controlling nanochips in Cramer’s (Generation M, 2014, etc.) sci-fi tale.
The end result of a global war in 2036 was billions dead and a quarter of the planet uninhabitable. To salvage what remained, the United States and Russia formed the Collective, a 12-person council to govern the world. Bulgarian technologist Dr. Nicholas Petrov then developed a chip that was embedded into people’s heads to control behavior and emotions, which led to world peace. But there are some who want to think and do as they please, which will be nearly impossible with the forthcoming V7 chip (due in 2055) that will transmit individuals’ thoughts to the Collective. The mission for 18-year-old Jerusalem rebel Raissa is to assassinate Petrov and counter the chip’s effects by transmitting the devourware program. She’s working with devourware writer, Christian Ashminov, whose M-code—which powers the nanochips—Petrov stole years ago. Their assignment ultimately connects them with Caleb Saunders, a researcher at the Collective’s NanoArtisans in Boston. Unfortunately, Raissa and Ashminov may not have enough time: The diabolical Petrov has already implemented a scheme that could end with a higher death toll than the war. Cramer’s novel abounds with revelations, starting with why only Caleb hears Petrov’s voice speaking to someone named Adam. The cast is dynamic, like Raissa, for one, who believes she lost her family in a missile strike. Petrov’s ultimate objective entails a good deal of exposition, which precipitates an ardent albeit conspicuous biblical allegory. But this hardly dampens potent scenes such as the nanochip maintaining elation for parents who have just lost their child. There are also myriad displays of Raissa’s extensive combat training: “She threw a roundhouse punch…her knuckles connected above the bridge of his nose, unleashing torrents of blood through his nostrils.”
A twisty and exhilarating dystopian romp.Pub Date: June 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9898128-7-0
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Train Renoir Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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