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MATRYOSCHKA

Name: MATRYOSCHKA
Author: Terry Gene
ISBN: 978-1-72392-691-4

From the Matryoschka Heritage series , Vol. 1

by Terry Gene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2018

While overly long and sometimes confusing, this sci-fi tale remains thoughtful and emotional.

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Alternative pasts and genders arise from a failed quantum energy experiment in this debut novel.

Alexandria Jane Merk is a white Army veteran who, “at twenty-six, had left her soul on the streets of Tikrit, Iraq” when she couldn’t save two young boys. She’s now attending a university in Pullman, Washington, accompanied by friends Quentin Khan, a chubby, Arabic “man-child,” and Katie Jo Parker, a very tall black woman and fellow vet. Alex Jane becomes affected by a physics experiment that causes her to lose “contact with herself,” creating alternative pasts for two separate identities into which she splits. One is college freshman Sarah Beth Merk, who generally feels that life is good, although she has almost-buried memories of a horrifying childhood event. The other is Alexander “Alex” James Monroe, an Army vet with disturbing childhood memories of his own centering on his great-great-grandmother—“Babushka”— and the mental gymnastics she forced him to undergo with a set of matryoschka, Russian nesting dolls, covered with mysterious writing. And Sarah Beth/Alex are similar to these dolls, because she seemingly exists as a “flesh-hued thing” that slips on and off; in fact, she’s “pure energy” and “the most dangerous thing on Earth.” The dual entity, their friends, and government researchers must race to solve mounting puzzles before Sarah Beth loses control. In his sci-fi series opener, Gene posits a complex, what-if scenario with intriguing (if somewhat vague) links to quantum physics. The gender what-if is central and has a remarkable twist, but Sarah Beth/Alex could be expected to explore their state with more curiosity. The nesting-doll image is also captivating although sometimes overly abstract. While the novel is divided into three parts (“SARAH,” “ALEX,” and “SARAH BETH”), plotting gets hard to follow amid the story’s changing identities and past lives; everything seems to happen in a big swirl. Gene’s dialogue is naturalistic, although characterization sometimes falters, as with Katie—too much the cliché of the scary, angry black woman.

While overly long and sometimes confusing, this sci-fi tale remains thoughtful and emotional.

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-72392-691-4

Page Count: 566

Publisher: Time Tunnel Media

Review Posted Online: July 18, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ODYSSEY

by Homer ; translated by Emily Wilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2017

More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue’s work and lacking some of the music of Fagles’...

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Fresh version of one of the world’s oldest epic poems, a foundational text of Western literature.

Sing to me, O muse, of the—well, in the very opening line, the phrase Wilson (Classical Studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania) chooses is the rather bland “complicated man,” the adjective missing out on the deviousness implied in the Greek polytropos, which Robert Fagles translated as “of twists and turns.” Wilson has a few favorite words that the Greek doesn’t strictly support, one of them being “monstrous,” meaning something particularly heinous, and to have Telemachus “showing initiative” seems a little report-card–ish and entirely modern. Still, rose-fingered Dawn is there in all her glory, casting her brilliant light over the wine-dark sea, and Wilson has a lively understanding of the essential violence that underlies the complicated Odysseus’ great ruse to slaughter the suitors who for 10 years have been eating him out of palace and home and pitching woo to the lovely, blameless Penelope; son Telemachus shows that initiative, indeed, by stringing up a bevy of servant girls, “their heads all in a row / …strung up with the noose around their necks / to make their death an agony.” In an interesting aside in her admirably comprehensive introduction, which extends nearly 80 pages, Wilson observes that the hanging “allows young Telemachus to avoid being too close to these girls’ abused, sexualized bodies,” and while her reading sometimes tends to be overly psychologized, she also notes that the violence of Odysseus, by which those suitors “fell like flies,” mirrors that of some of the other ungracious hosts he encountered along his long voyage home to Ithaca.

More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue’s work and lacking some of the music of Fagles’ recent translations of Homer; still, a readable and worthy effort.

Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-393-08905-9

Page Count: 656

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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by Homer ; translated by Emily Wilson

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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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.