A cheekily ironic takedown of academic adventures in absurdity.
Barlow’s (Between the Eagle or the Dragon, 2013, etc.) debut novel provides a farcical look at the pursuit of junk science in the hallowed halls of the academy.
Sandra Hidecock, a distinguished legal professor at Harvard, plunges to her death from a campus window. Her demise is ruled a suicide and followed by a celebration of the central theme of her work: the tyranny constituted by the immutable laws of nature, the chief barrier to the achievement of human autonomy. Harvard scientist Duronimus Karlof generally considers her work to be faddish nonsense based on a puerile misunderstanding of even the most basic science. But Hidecock left him a letter imploring him to consider her research, a solicitation he finds surprisingly moving. As a result, Karlof decides to put together a team of underachieving academics—he calls them “gloominaries”—to pursue an ambitious project inspired by Hidecock, the contravention of the laws of nature. After the consideration of utterly outrageous possibilities, the “Harvard Six” decide to create a machine—the “Ooala Reactor”—which can slow an object down even after it becomes stationary, achieving a condition they call “sub-stationary.” Of course, this is scientifically meaningless, but apparently that’s an unimportant concern. When one of the scientists expresses anxiety over the coherence of the project, Amelia, the group’s legal adviser and a devotee of Hidecock, responds: “You mustn’t worry about that. If people understood modern physics, nobody would ever fund it. Our greatest advantage will be that nobody understands what we’re doing—not even us.” They manage to raise over a billion dollars in funding commitments and attract the enthusiastic attention of academic and governmental organizations alike. A gifted satirist, Barlow impressively lampoons higher education’s obsession with novelty at the expense of rigor and common sense. The dialogue is memorably funny, and the author avoids the most common trap of satire, which is to adopt a sententiously knowing tone. The story intelligently raises provocative questions about the historically stormy relationship between science and public opinion, and it wryly exposes the vanity and ideological blindness of even the most heralded intellectuals. This is a rare book—hilarious, thoughtful, and culturally relevant all at once.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9924159-3-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ivory League Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A super-exorcism that leaves the taste of somebody else's blood in your mouth and what a bad taste it is. King presents us with the riddle of a small Maine town that has been deserted overnight. Where did all the down-Easters go? Matter of fact, they're still there but they only get up at sundown. . . for a warm drink. . . .Ben Mears, a novelist, returns to Salem's Lot (pop. 1319), the hometown he hasn't seen since he was four years old, where he falls for a young painter who admires his books (what happens to her shouldn't happen to a Martian). Odd things are manifested. Someone rents the ghastly old Marsten mansion, closed since a horrible double murder-suicide in 1939; a dog is found impaled on a spiked fence; a healthy boy dies of anemia in one week and his brother vanishes. Ben displays tremendous calm considering that you're left to face a corpse that sits up after an autopsy and sinks its fangs into the coroner's neck. . . . Vampirism, necrophilia, et dreadful alia rather overplayed by the author of Carrie (1974).
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1975
ISBN: 0385007515
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1975
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
This novel began as a reworking of W.W. Jacobs' horror classic "The Monkey's Paw"—a short story about the dreadful outcome when a father wishes for his dead son's resurrection. And King's 400-page version reads, in fact, like a monstrously padded short story, moving so slowly that every plot-turn becomes lumberingly predictable. Still, readers with a taste for the morbid and ghoulish will find unlimited dark, mortality-obsessed atmosphere here—as Dr. Louis Creed arrives in Maine with wife Rachel and their two little kids Ellie and Gage, moving into a semi-rural house not far from the "Pet Sematary": a spot in the woods where local kids have been burying their pets for decades. Louis, 35, finds a great new friend/father-figure in elderly neighbor Jud Crandall; he begins work as director of the local university health-services. But Louis is oppressed by thoughts of death—especially after a dying student whispers something about the pet cemetery, then reappears in a dream (but is it a dream) to lead Louis into those woods during the middle of the night. What is the secret of the Pet Sematary? Well, eventually old Jud gives Louis a lecture/tour of the Pet Sematary's "annex"—an old Micmac burying ground where pets have been buried. . .and then reappeared alive! So, when little Ellie's beloved cat Church is run over (while Ellie's visiting grandfolks), Louis and Jud bury it in the annex—resulting in a faintly nasty resurrection: Church reappears, now with a foul smell and a creepy demeanor. But: what would happen if a human corpse were buried there? That's the question when Louis' little son Gage is promptly killed in an accident. Will grieving father Louis dig up his son's body from the normal graveyard and replant it in the Pet Sematary? What about the stories of a previous similar attempt—when dead Timmy Baterman was "transformed into some sort of all-knowing daemon?" Will Gage return to the living—but as "a thing of evil?" He will indeed, spouting obscenities and committing murder. . .before Louis must eliminate this child-demon he has unleashed. Filled out with overdone family melodrama (the feud between Louis and his father-in-law) and repetitious inner monologues: a broody horror tale that's strong on dark, depressing chills, weak on suspense or surprise—and not likely to please the fans of King's zestier, livelier terror-thons.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1983
ISBN: 0743412281
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
