Set more than 2,500 years in the future and reminiscent of classic pulp space operas from the 1950s, this high-octane sci-fi novel is powered by grand-scale action and adventure, larger-than-life characters, a richly described backdrop and, above all else, relentless pacing.
Humankind has attempted to join the Galactic Forum (“the nearest thing the Milky Way had to a governing body”) before but has had its acceptance delayed because it can’t seem to abide by the most important rule of Galactic Law: the Responsibility Principle—“Every species is responsible for the acts of all its members.” Enter Sirius Kade, the archetypal space-opera hero—charismatic, courageous, headstrong and undeniably endearing. The captain of a merchant starship and deep-cover operative for the Earth Intelligence Service, Kade is tasked with a seemingly impossible mission in which he must attend a black market auction, the outcome of which risks humankind’s future as an interstellar civilization. The relic being auctioned is an invaluable piece of alien technology more than 7 million years old; Kade’s charge is to possess it at any cost. The mission becomes exponentially more complicated when Kade’s sometime lover, Marie Dulon, shows up as another bidder on the remote planet where the auction is taking place. The exceptional worldbuilding, intricately constructed storyline and breakneck pacing are weighed down, however, by a glut of one-dimensional characters. Kade, Dulon and company are all cardboard cutouts with no real emotional depth. Kade’s hard-drinking and womanizing 26-year-old co-pilot, Jase Logan, for example, is an easy stereotype, as are the Matarons, a villainous reptilian race. Although this first installment of the Mapped Space saga is certainly not without imperfections, Renneberg has created the foundation for what could be a highly entertaining series of adventures à la Simon R. Green’s Deathstalker novels and Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series.
Fast and furious fun in humankind’s distant future.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9874347-8-4
Page Count: 244
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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