An interesting, ambitious and somewhat flawed opening chapter in a promising series full of science and action.
The first volume in a science-fiction series about a young man who’s abducted by benevolent aliens, bio-engineered to superhuman levels and sent back to Earth years later to stop an alien invasion.
When 19-year-old Jaden Martino stumbles on a downed spaceship, he instantly becomes the hunted prey of nefarious U.S. government agencies bent on confiscating the UFO—and eliminating any civilians who know about it. The alien machine not only protects Jaden from his pursuers but whisks him off to a distant planet where he makes friends with the aliens. They inject him with body-transforming nanotechnology and warn him of the evil Darclonians, who plan on using their own nanotechnology to conquer Earth. In Carter’s hyperkinetic narrative, Jaden is returned to Earth to use his enhanced knowledge and abilities to ferret out Darclonian infiltrators and rally the resistance of a world that doesn’t even know that it’s in danger. Along the way, Jaden must contend with the many secret U.S. government agencies that want to capture or kill him, so the author gets to play up his hero’s underdog status. Carter also daringly makes Jaden almost unlikable: he’s misogynistic, homophobic, completely self-centered and hungry for fame (characters are forever dream-casting the Hollywood movies of their lives). In fact, Carter says that the book is intended to simulate the experience of watching a movie, adding that he believes it could become next Star Wars, Matrix or Star Trek series (and that he feels like George Lucas in the early ’70s). To Carter’s credit, his tale has many elements that would translate well to a big budget, special effects extravaganza. The book is a fast, engrossing read—the pace never lets up for an instant—but it could have used a close edit to tighten up the nearly 700 pages.
An interesting, ambitious and somewhat flawed opening chapter in a promising series full of science and action.Pub Date: July 20, 2010
ISBN: 978-0578044545
Page Count: 682
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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