Will the Earthlings prevail? Cue Count Floyd, the old SCTV creature-feature host: “Oooh, very scary, boys and girls.” Or...
Yeah, yeah. Space zombies have taken over the world, courtesy of Sigler (Nocturnal, 2012, etc.) and his capable if derivative Infected series, which winds down with this volume.
Fans of the series will know that it started as a kind of police procedural that got increasingly supernatural and sci-fi–ish, a kind of Childhood’s End with oodles of mayhem. Sigler lays it on plenty thick here—among other things, the Navy is now blowing itself apart, half populated with the “infected” and half with swabbies still eligible for honorable discharge. And why the Navy? Because somewhere under Lake Michigan, something very strange is happening. Margaret Montoya, the tough and resourceful doctor who’s helped battle the alien virus, is back in action in a world full of unpretty pictures: “His own blood had baked flaky-dry on his skin. A softball-sized pustule on his left collarbone streamed black rot down his wide chest.” Eck. (And that’s not even to mention the severed penis that the dude is clutching, presumably his own.) It wouldn’t be a proper shoot’em-up without an assortment of Sgt. Rock types—Navy SEALs, Delta Force, top cops and ops, and so forth—with the usual gallows humor (“Your courage is immeasurable, Roger. If you don’t turn into a plant, drinks are on me”). Sigler excels at snappy dialogue, but the story itself is too familiar for anyone who grew up on a diet of The Omega Man and Aliens. Still, for those who can’t get enough of must-eat-brains yellow monster types with extremely bad attitudes, this is just the book.
Will the Earthlings prevail? Cue Count Floyd, the old SCTV creature-feature host: “Oooh, very scary, boys and girls.” Or maybe not. Competent enough but without many surprises.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-3074-0897-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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