Shades of Tom Robbins, but the author’s talent for wordplay is not quite enough to sustain a full-length novel.
Hippie values prevail in this whimsical satire directed at the military/industrial/academic complex, a debut novel that has become somewhat of a cult hit since it was self-published in 2001.
Tynee University—so named at the insistence of its blustering, egomaniacal president and CEO, Tibor Tynee—has a cozy relationship with big business; narrator Flake Fountain, a molecular geneticist, is especially successful at attracting grant money. The physically unappealing Flake (“chubby, bald, drooling”) is best friends with Blip Korterly and his wife, Dr. Sophia Carthorse. Sophia is still on the faculty, but Blip recently lost his job as a sociology professor. They are old-fashioned hippies, living with their daughter Dandelion in a geodesic dome; Flake finds their playfulness delightful. He has just been given a top-secret assignment by Tynee. The university, together with the military (represented by General Kiljoy), has developed the Pied Piper virus, which disables enemies’ symbolic capacity, rendering them unable to communicate. It’s a significant advance in humane warfare, but the military has yet to develop a vaccine; Flake will be paid $10 million to do just that. The virus has already been tested on humans, with prisoners as subjects; one of them is Blip, who had heard of the experiments and deliberately gotten himself arrested. However, he manages to escape, and joins a wild open-air party on campus, spreading the virus; this entails the termination of the project and a blockade of the city. Throughout the narrative, suspense takes a backseat to philosophizing and linguistic fireworks as Flake holds forth on such topics as love, language, evolution and free will. But not to worry. It turns out that the virus is not as sinister as expected, as evidenced by the happy, liberated populace dancing on the city’s perimeter. Flake concludes that we must love one another, live in the present and act like his neighbors, naked except for their rainbow cloaks.
Shades of Tom Robbins, but the author’s talent for wordplay is not quite enough to sustain a full-length novel.Pub Date: April 2, 2007
ISBN: 0-15-603122-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.
Second part of an alien-contact trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, 2014) from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In the previous book, the inhabitants of Trisolaris, a planet with three suns, discovered that their planet was doomed and that Earth offered a suitable refuge. So, determined to capture Earth and exterminate humanity, the Trisolarans embarked on a 400-year-long interstellar voyage and also sent sophons (enormously sophisticated computers constructed inside the curled-up dimensions of fundamental particles) to spy on humanity and impose an unbreakable block on scientific advance. On Earth, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization formed to help the invaders, despite knowing the inevitable outcome. Humanity’s lone advantage is that Trisolarans are incapable of lying or dissimulation and so cannot understand deceit or subterfuge. This time, with the Trisolarans a few years into their voyage, physicist Ye Wenjie (whose reminiscences drove much of the action in the last book) visits astronomer-turned-sociologist Luo Ji, urging him to develop her ideas on cosmic sociology. The Planetary Defense Council, meanwhile, in order to combat the powerful escapist movement (they want to build starships and flee so that at least some humans will survive), announces the Wallfacer Project. Four selected individuals will be accorded the power to command any resource in order to develop plans to defend Earth, while the details will remain hidden in the thoughts of each Wallfacer, where even the sophons can't reach. To combat this, the ETO creates Wallbreakers, dedicated to deducing and thwarting the plans of the Wallfacers. The chosen Wallfacers are soldier Frederick Tyler, diplomat Manuel Rey Diaz, neuroscientist Bill Hines, and—Luo Ji. Luo has no idea why he was chosen, but, nonetheless, the Trisolarans seem determined to kill him. The plot’s development centers on Liu’s dark and rather gloomy but highly persuasive philosophy, with dazzling ideas and an unsettling, nonlinear, almost nonnarrative structure that demands patience but offers huge rewards.
Once again, a highly impressive must-read.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7708-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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