A sci-fi series opener with ADHD as a key component that deserves all the attention it can get.
A brilliant, reckless troublemaker appears to be the only person immune to the mind-control camouflage of benign aliens dwelling incognito on Earth.
An intro by the author’s psychiatrist explains that Halt (Pillars of Amorum, 2018, etc.) has ADHD and channels that disability into the protagonist of this opener to a sci-fi trilogy. That foreknowledge sets up expectations of a disease-of-the-week TV movie (or something akin to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo vs. the Flying Saucers), which prove happily inaccurate. Caelans are not monstrous space invaders but a human-appearing alien race, both technologically and morally advanced well beyond Homo sapiens. Hidden in elite positions in society, they’ve studied humankind with fascination for more than 50 years. A vital distinction between Caelans and earthlings: the aliens’ mental “psy” powers that they can use for protection and persuasion. This ability has kept the extraterrestrials’ secret—until they meet Chase Madison, an unstable Chicagoan diagnosed with ADHD. Chase has a history of violence but is also smart and fearless when it counts. Avery, a beautiful (but terribly naïve) Caelan scientist, and Nathan, her stolid fiance, try to evaluate Chase’s resistance to psy. An even bigger threat, however, is that Caelans on Earth are falling prey to negative traits—jealousy, thirst for power, and especially anger—that their species seemingly overcame eons ago. The Caelan “Regulus,” or leader (the author cleverly substitutes high-minded Latin for a purely invented alien language), having lost his wife, has literally gone mad with grief and is planning the unthinkable. The author’s premise may remind genre readers of Zenna Henderson’s humanistic The People stories. Halt sets up rich, emotional character minefields and conflicts without letting his antihero’s pathology take the focus off the bigger picture. Much remains unresolved at the end (only the beginning of this saga). But readers of international sci-fi who revere (deservedly) the Arkady and Boris Strugatsky classic Hard to Be a God will want to check out Halt’s thoughtful take on what can go wrong when incredible and supremely ethical outsiders try to blend in with the coarse natives. If Chase is a protagonist as volatile as Randle Patrick McMurphy, Halt’s prose stylings throughout are steady, sober, and finely honed, refraining from dropping Hollywood FX whammies in a manner more befitting Cylons than Caelans.
A sci-fi series opener with ADHD as a key component that deserves all the attention it can get.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72624-158-8
Page Count: 443
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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