Despite sometimes trying a little too hard: frothy, sassy entertainment.
Science fiction with a humorous bent, and the first adult novel in over a decade from the author of The Game of Thirty (1994, etc).
Hidden inside Junk Moon, a riotous cosmic scrap heap where dead spaceships go, lie the tunnels, machines, scientists and robots of the Amphora Project. Overseen in deadly secret by the Consortium, using technology adapted from the vanished, god-like Ancient Aliens, creatures who also made the hyperspace Corridor that allows navigation from star to star, Amphora’s purpose is human immortality. Wisecracking space pirate Jockey Oldcastle gets wind of the project and invites some friends along to investigate: Jockey’s scaly sidekick, Lizardo, inoffensive insect expert Adrian Link and his robot assistant, Upquark, and gorgeous alien singer Ren Ixen. Ren likes Adrian, but Adrian just drones on about his beloved insects: Incapable of forming human relationships, he intuitively understands insect behavior and communications. Using stolen plans to gain entry to the tunnels, Jockey and company force one of the scientists to demonstrate the equipment; unfortunately, the scientist turns into crystal. Jockey, Adrian and the rest flee in various directions, pursued by agents of the Autonomous Observer. But now all sorts of people on the moon are also turning to crystal, including the entire Consortium. The Observer’s challenge is to stop the crystallization process before it engulfs everyone. Adrian’s intuition tells him that neither the project nor its machinery are responsible; instead, blind insect-like aliens from another dimension surreptitiously guided Amphora’s creation so that they can invade our dimension and steal our energy. Can Adrian and friends respond in time?
Despite sometimes trying a little too hard: frothy, sassy entertainment.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1803-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: He’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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