A discussion of morality disguised as a terrific sci-fi action story.
A rollicking science-fiction story about mutant teens forced to battle the paramilitary army that created them.
Posey, Andy, Holly, John, Kenny, Indigo and Sarah were taken from their families when they were seven years old and kept at the Home where they were tested, operated on, observed and changed. Now, a decade older and on the brink of legal adulthood, they are ready to head into the real world to live as normally as they can. However, the group sponsoring the great experiment has other ideas. When they try to escape, the teenagers are confronted by an army of soldiers from all over the world who have one objective–final analysis and subsequent termination of the test subjects. A few of the kids also have to contend with the sudden maturation of their powers–one of them turns into a bird, another can run so fast that her pants catch on fire and another grows powerful muscles that can withstand bullets. Their powers are a help and a hindrance as they struggle to regroup, save each other and save themselves. Little is a deft writer, seamlessly blending fast-paced action with engaging dialogue and complementary descriptions in this, his second book. He does not ask readers to jump haphazardly into a sea of pseudoscience bent to the needs of his plot, but bases his science fiction in concepts that will feel slightly familiar and wholeheartedly believable, like genetic mutation. The plot of The Seven stems organically from the characters, and no scene feels forced together for the sake of explanation. Also, the author doesn’t ignore consequences. The characters take full responsibility for killing and stop to grapple with the moral question of whether it’s alright to kill when battling for your life, or if any death is too great a loss. As such, the book works well on multiple fronts, and will appeal to young readers and adults alike.
A discussion of morality disguised as a terrific sci-fi action story.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-6084-4066-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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