Curiously unresolved; perhaps intentionally so but unsatisfying either way.
This debut novel suggests that in space, there is always room for drama.
Even the most casual genre fan knows that a multiyear journey to a distant planet is probably doomed from the start. Unfortunately, no one sent the memo to the alternate early-21st-century Britain where this story begins. Decades after probes send back images and data from a seemingly idyllic Earth-like planet with no sentient life, the U.K. Space Agency plots a 23-year-long colonization mission to this “Terra-Two” with four adult astronauts plus six teenagers who have spent the last six years in a highly competitive academy that has trained them for space to the point of burnout, so much so that one of them, Ara, commits suicide the day before the launch in 2012. The senior crew are practically ciphers, particularly the noble and kind captain; the story focuses on the young prodigies: gifted pilot Harry, whose arrogance often tips toward cruelty; Astrid, whose devotion to the mission mingles with a religious mania; her twin, Juno, who relies on science and rules to the exclusion of tact; beautiful polyglot Poppy, whose polished exterior masks the emotional damage she suffered as an abused and neglected child; Eliot, a brilliant engineer and Ara’s grieving boyfriend; and Jesse, who believes it was his destiny to go on the mission but, as Ara’s last-minute replacement, never quite feels part of the crew. Despite extensive psychological testing, no one seems to have realized that this group might have some trouble getting along, which is presumably essential for a decadeslong journey in a small vessel. There’s friction from the beginning, magnified by serious mechanical trouble within the mission’s first year. Why was this mix of careful planning and egregious blind spots allowed to launch in the first place? Was the need for the U.K. to win the space race so important that it was worth sacrificing these people and resources even though the possibility for success was so slim? Preferring to focus on the fraught interplay among the junior crew, author Oh never provides answers to the many questions her plot raises, nor offers much hope that the ensuing 22 years will lead to a happy outcome.
Curiously unresolved; perhaps intentionally so but unsatisfying either way.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3740-1
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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