A massive, thoughtful sci-fi saga, weighty in more ways than one but rewarding.
In this two-novel sci-fi saga, selectively bred human/animal genetic hybrids plot to break free of their surveillance and exploitation.
Wozniak (The Gardener of Nahi, 2013, etc.) previously published this dense saga in separate volumes, The Perihelion and An Obliquity. The first finishes at a high point; the second picks up moments later. Gene-spliced together, they constitute a 700-plus-page epic spanning mainly one catastrophic day in early 2069. Medical science has experimented with blended human/animal DNA, yielding a few boons (a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease) but mainly generating a handful of much-feared, genetically modified hybrids incorrectly called 99ers—for 99 percent human. (Readers are told that “an average 99er would have to have twenty times more animal genes in their DNA” to be truly considered “99% human.”) Like the android replicants of Philip K. Dick, these mutants are close to Homo sapiens but harbor personality/physiological disorders in addition to the traits making them valuable in espionage and dangerous dirty work. But society regards the hybrids as nonhuman, to be tightly regulated and constantly monitored. Gavivi, a snoopy “hummingbird”—not a hybrid but a freelance video reporter wet-wired into an airborne spy minicam—senses an international scheme to kill all the badly flawed “leopard” 99ers and wants to expose the conspiracy for fortune and fame. Meanwhile, Aspen, gifted with radiation-resilient wasp DNA, plots an escape for herself and fellow hybrids, even if an entire city must fall to a weapon of mass destruction. Formerly Chicago, the endangered city is now a high-tech “Bluecore 1C” metropolis in a disunited America, where wealthy, elitist liberals live. The more rural, working-class, socially conservative folks reside in the “Redlands.” Longtime bestseller readers may experience déjà vu and recall James Clavell’s supersized,non–sci-fi Noble House as Wozniak’s diverse, well-drawn characters—ranging from a trendy but fraudulent photographer to a Roman Catholic priest once forcibly conscripted as an African child soldier—are swept into the 99er-pocalypse. The author’s richly detailed canvas explores religion, redemption, aesthetics, parenthood, relationships, and (naturally) the meaning of being human. If his big-ideas reach sometimes exceeds his grasp, there are still more solid thematic hits than misses here. In a few peculiar asides, the actual land itself comments on the action and what God wants, and it’s impressive that even this risky gambit works as well as it does.
A massive, thoughtful sci-fi saga, weighty in more ways than one but rewarding.Pub Date: June 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72033-063-9
Page Count: 748
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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