Following his dynamic 1998 debut, the Antarctic thriller Ice Reich, ex-journalist and Pulitzer Prize—winner Dietrich moves on to Australia for this slower-paced future-world saga of malcontents and convicts roaming the outback in a deadly game orchestrated by an all-powerful corporate entity. Halfway through the 21st century, United Corporations has made the world secure—even if a plague born of genetic engineering did accidentally kill off the entire human population of Australia—but Daniel Dyson, a comfortably midlevel programmer, isn—t satisfied. His bad attitude earns him a reprimand, yet suddenly, out of the surrounding darkness of conformity, a ray of hope shines forth in the shapely form of Raven. She entices him into a subterranean escapade, then turns him on to Outback Adventure, a secret, selective tour agency offering the ultimate challenge: a no-gadgets survivalist trek across now plague-free Australia, with only those reaching the coast able to get back home. Although Raven vanishes, Daniel still signs up, trusting he—ll run into her over there. But, as he and the group he’s teamed with learn to their dismay, when Raven saves them from dying of thirst, their ultimate adventure is just another means for Big Brother to stifle dissent—by throwing together the restless and the criminal in a place apart, with no intention of bringing any of them back. Raven proves to be not the fellow free spirit Daniel had fallen in love with; she is instead an agent of the corporate monolith he detests. As they traverse the continent, however, with a pack of killer convicts pursuing them for the key to escape, which the two possess, a new understanding grows between them, as does a new hope for humanity. The pro-wilderness, outside-the-box message is hammered home in ways ranging from clever to clunky, but when the action stops and the pondering begins, a lack of character depth makes this story about as succulent as a mouthful of desert sand.
Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2000
ISBN: 0-446-52457-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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