A compelling, visionary must-read for literary sci-fi fans that recalls genre classics by Frederik Pohl and Arthur C. Clarke.
In Australian author Renneberg’s (The Siren Project, 2012) blockbuster science-fiction thriller, humanity comes in contact with a vastly advanced alien race.
When an apparent meteor falls in a remote area of Australia’s Northern Territory, a diverse group of people heads off to investigate the site, including a zoologist who ran a research station that had all of its metal removed by an unidentified flying object; a band of beer-swilling hunters; an Aborigine hunter; and an elite military team that specializes in dealing with extraterrestrials. The fallen object turns out not to be a meteorite at all, but a massive alien mother ship that has inexplicably crash-landed. It soon becomes apparent that the aliens have begun to mine the area with drones and seem to be building a breathtakingly large defensive bridgehead. Some of the humans want to study the aliens and attempt to communicate with the crash survivors, while others want to simply nuke them off the face of the Earth. But two questions remain: What do these aliens want, and why are they here? Renneberg seamlessly and brilliantly intertwines his storylines (and includes a vivid and fascinating description of the aliens’ back story) while also examining humankind’s myriad shortcomings. First-contact stories are common in science fiction, but Renneberg’s highly original novel successfully avoids clichés while also providing a highly readable, breakneck-paced story. Readers will likely enjoy its bombshell plot twists and its fitting (and mind-blowing) conclusion.
A compelling, visionary must-read for literary sci-fi fans that recalls genre classics by Frederik Pohl and Arthur C. Clarke.Pub Date: June 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0987434739
Page Count: 592
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Nobody writing today surpasses the precocious Waters’s virtuosic handling of narrative complexity and thickly textured...
Imagine a university-educated lesbian Charles Dickens with a similarly keen eye for mendacity and melodrama, and you’ll have some idea of the pleasures lurking in Waters’s impudent revisionist historicals: Tipping the Velvet (1999), Affinity (2000), and now this richly woven tale of duplicity, passion, and lots of other good stuff.
It begins as the narrative of 17-year-old Susan Trinder, an orphan resident of the criminal domicile run by Hogarthian Grace Sucksby, a Fagin-like “farmer” of discarded infants and den-mother to an extended family of “fingersmiths” (i.e., pickpockets) and assorted confidence-persons. One of the latter, Richard Rivers (a.k.a. “Gentleman”), engages Susan in an elaborate plot to fleece wealthy old Mr. Lilly, a connoisseur of rare books—as lady’s maid “Susan Smith” to Lilly’s niece and ward Maude, a “simple, natural” innocent who will be married off to “Mr. Rivers,” then disposed of in a madhouse, while the conspirators share her wealth. Maidservant and mistress grow unexpectedly close, until Gentleman’s real plan—a surprise no reader will see coming—leads to a retelling of events we’ve just witnessed, from a second viewpoint—which reveals the truth about Mr. Lilly’s bibliomania, and discloses to a second heroine that “Your life was not the life that you were meant to live.” (Misdirections and reversals are essential components of Waters’s brilliant plot, which must not be given away.) Further intrigues, escapes, and revelations climax when Susan (who has resumed her place as narrator) returns from her bizarre ordeal to Mrs. Sucksby’s welcoming den of iniquity, and a final twist of the knife precipitates another crime and its punishment, astonishing discoveries about both Maude and Susan (among others), and a muted reconciliation scene that ingeniously reshapes the conclusion of Dickens’s Great Expectations.
Nobody writing today surpasses the precocious Waters’s virtuosic handling of narrative complexity and thickly textured period detail. This is a marvelous novel.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2002
ISBN: 1-57322-203-8
Page Count: 493
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
Though extension is possible, make no mistake about it; this is a ward and not a microcosm.
This is a book which courts the dangers of two extremes.
It can be taken not seriously enough or, more likely, critical climate considered, too seriously. Kesey's first novel is narrated by a half-Indian schizophrenic who has withdrawn completely by feigning deaf-muteness. It is set in a mental ward ruled by Big Nurse—a monumental matriarch who keeps her men in line by some highly original disciplinary measures: Nursey doesn't spank, but oh that electric shock treatment! Into the ward swaggers McMurphy, a lusty gambling man with white whales on his shorts and the psychology of unmarried nurses down to a science. He leads the men on to a series of major victories, including the substitution of recent issues of Nugget and Playboy for some dated McCall's. The fatuity of hospital utilitarianism, that alcohol-swathed brand of idiocy responsible for the custom of waking patients from a deep sleep in order to administer barbiturates, is countered by McMurphy's simple, articulate, logic. This is a thoroughly enthralling, brilliantly tempered novel, peopled by at least two unforgettable characters. (Big Nurse is custom tailored for a busty Eileen Heckert.)
Though extension is possible, make no mistake about it; this is a ward and not a microcosm.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1962
ISBN: 0451163966
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1961
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
APPRECIATIONS
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