If you thought Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones was strange, it's nothing compared to what Strieber relates of his latest encounters with alien ``visitors.'' Strieber, too, has visions of the renewal of humanity, its elevation to a higher level of consciousness, mediated by the aliens who have been appearing to him regularly since 1985. He has confronted the terror that permeated his 1987 report, Communion, and now expresses a kind of religious faith in the godlike wisdom and goodness of the visitors, who may sometimes frighten and upset us—but only for our own good. Strieber asks these ``vibrantly alive'' beings to help him understand their mission. In response, they whisk him across the country in seconds to witness a visit they make to a friend of his; demonstrating what Strieber believes is an expanded use of human imagination, the aliens take him back in time to what he construes to be the expulsion from the Garden of Eden; they appear in his upstate New York cabin when a group of people, including a documentary filmmaker, are present. The visitors are here to teach us that the universe is mutable and fluid beyond our wildest scientific dreams and that we have souls. Their message is: ``Burn away your ignorance and your sins, then you can ascend.'' The real spooks in Strieber's scenario are not the visitors but government intruders who have hounded him since he first evinced interest in UFOs; and he presents some highly convincing evidence of a government cover-up regarding UFOs. Strieber's books have helped focus attention on the apparently not uncommon phenomenon of reports of alien visitation, but his arrogant, proselytizing tone detracts from the effectiveness of his reports here. He virtually accuses those who ``spread denial'' (such as the media) of a moral transgression. Still, if you can stomach the spiritual coating, Strieber's purported proof of alien visitors will at least give you serious pause.
Pub Date: June 21, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-017653-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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