Often more a metaphorical than tangible story, but unquestionably a literary journey worth taking.
In this dystopian novel, scientists struggle to find the source of a worldwide virus causing sexually stimulated men to assault women.
Women aboard the luxury cruise ship Luxus Maximus find themselves the targets of an unlikely threat—the male passengers. The men, with conspicuously engorged members, accost the ladies in an apparent trance. The women duck out in a suite and get help from the Australian Federal Police, boarding via helicopter. Doctors, however, can find nothing wrong with the affected men, who later express no interest in females, sexual or otherwise. A quarantine to subvert a potential outbreak is evidently ineffective: men are soon trying to force themselves onto women on a global scale. Scientists, including geneticist Dr. Roger Klein, can’t immediately pinpoint the cause but determine that the mere sight of the opposite sex triggers the men’s response. Agencies, meanwhile, opt for temporary solutions. Separating the genders, for one, fails when armed male soldiers, intended to keep men away from safe zones, cross into the women’s areas and attack. Burqas quiet things down, but Christians suggesting that a cross be emblazoned on the Islamic garment ignites heated religious debates and eventual terrorist strikes. Klein discovers a mutating virus and a message—converted to audio and visual components—in genetic material. If the message can be translated, scientists may uncover the virus’s origin and possibly a cure. Despite a seemingly playful title, the novel takes itself seriously, more in tune with dark satire. There’s copious fallout from the virus, for example, like the chance of economic crisis because women primarily staying inside diminishes the workforce. Abanteriba (Poetic Retribution from Mars, 2006) provides back stories for notable characters such as Klein and Dr. Harald Brand, director-general of the World Health Organization. Regardless, a focus on the plot doesn’t afford them much personality. The latter half slows down considerably, with Klein and company searching for someone to translate the message. This portion is too long and tedious, repeatedly stressing that the world is on the “precipice” of or “teetering” on disaster (or doom, etc.). But the moral remains loud and clear, leading to a clever reexamination of the title and the imposing final thought.
Often more a metaphorical than tangible story, but unquestionably a literary journey worth taking.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4828-6431-1
Page Count: 454
Publisher: PartridgeSingapore
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.
Self-assured, entertaining debut novel that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic.
The world’s not big enough for two wizards, as Tolkien taught us—even if that world is the shiny, modern one of the late 19th century, with its streetcars and electric lights and newfangled horseless carriages. Yet, as first-time novelist Morgenstern imagines it, two wizards there are, if likely possessed of more legerdemain than true conjuring powers, and these two are jealous of their turf. It stands to reason, the laws of the universe working thus, that their children would meet and, rather than continue the feud into a new generation, would instead fall in love. Call it Romeo and Juliet for the Gilded Age, save that Morgenstern has her eye on a different Shakespearean text, The Tempest; says a fellow called Prospero to young magician Celia of the name her mother gave her, “She should have named you Miranda...I suppose she was not clever enough to think of it.” Celia is clever, however, a born magician, and eventually a big hit at the Circus of Dreams, which operates, naturally, only at night and has a slightly sinister air about it. But what would you expect of a yarn one of whose chief setting-things-into-action characters is known as “the man in the grey suit”? Morgenstern treads into Harry Potter territory, but though the chief audience for both Rowling and this tale will probably comprise of teenage girls, there are only superficial genre similarities. True, Celia’s magical powers grow, and the ordinary presto-change-o stuff gains potency—and, happily, surrealistic value. Finally, though, all the magic has deadly consequence, and it is then that the tale begins to take on the contours of a dark thriller, all told in a confident voice that is often quite poetic, as when the man in the grey suit tells us, “There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.”
Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-53463-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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