For all those Trekkies who—even after repeatedly watching hundreds of episodes of Star Trek and its sequels—still haven't got the show figured out, this book just might do the trick. Despite his dubious claim that no other books have tried to catalog the meanings of Star Trek, novelist Richards (Zero Tolerance, 1996, etc.) does a sound job of mining broad themes, attitudes, and implications from the various Trek series. Perhaps because it lasted many seasons longer than any of the others—and preferred metaphysical speculation and diplomacy over Captain Kirkstyle fisticuffs with aliens—Star Trek: The Next Generation provides most of Richards's material. A former Harvard English professor, Richards usually manages to keep his deconstructionism dumbed down to a level accessible to teenage sci-fi fans (although he often seems to be pining for the Elysian fields of lit-crit academic discourse). While the general tendency in myth is toward tragedy, this is not the case with Star Trek, which is motivated, he asserts, by ``essentially comic visions emphasizing the triumph of the hero, the flourishing of civilization, and the importance of all action.'' No doubt the usually sunny, comic vision of commercial television is also responsible, but this is the kind of analysis Richards shies away from. He is concerned with the ``what,'' not the ``why,'' mooting almost any discussion of the nonhermeneutical meanings of Star Trek. Thus, there is nothing, for example, on why the Federation's benign variant of expansionism/imperialism looks a lot like a sci-fi version of the ``Great Society.'' Within the ``text'' of the show, however, Richards's analysis is excellent and covers everything from theology to the emphasis on individualism that lies at the very heart of the Star Trek universe. Though this isn't exactly rocket science, Richards does a fine job with the material at hand. If only he'd boldly dared to go a little further.
Pub Date: July 2, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48437-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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