The Gyre Mission: Journey to the *sshole of the World

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The Gyre Mission: Journey to the *sshole of the World

Name: The Gyre Mission: Journey to the *sshole of the World
Author: Edgar Swamp
ISBN: 978-0615655161

by Edgar Swamp ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 25, 2012

A visually engaging, irrefutably intoxicating adventure.

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First-time novelist Swamp weaves an epic tale of a crew sent to assess a garbage heap in the Pacific Ocean—and to learn what happened to the last crew sent to investigate it.

Debris in the North Pacific Gyre has formed a mass three times the size of Texas. After a group scientists sent to the gyre mysteriously vanishes, the president of the United States opts to assign the task to “expendable volunteers” instead of wasting more scientists. The crew includes college students, naval recruits looking to avoid jail time, and even a dominatrix privately hired by the California governor spearheading the operation. When they get to the gyre, they find more than just trash—something far more hazardous. The novel delivers the droll, satirical tone suggested by its subtitle. Its ragtag band of characters has unapologetically bizarre traits: Dante, who’s made a career out of being a drug-trial guinea pig; Kenny, a former football player hooked on painkillers and booze; and Tyler, a con man who mooches off women but believes his affection for Melissa, the dominatrix, is genuine—because he told her his real name. The long book is divided into three parts; the first two introduce most of the prospective crew and the oceanic excursion to the gyre. In the third, the ship reaches the island of garbage and the story takes a decidedly Lovecraftian turn. Characters are subjected to putrid odors and vile substances and attacked by mutated creatures. This section, which takes up half the novel, is filled with potent but often grotesque imagery—such as a pit trap outfitted with a bed of syringes—and is likely to make even the most steadfast readers squirm. Readers may not find it easy to care about many of the people in Swamp’s story; Captain Harvey and the governor, for example, seem to hate everyone, and other crewmembers remain unidentified (although one finally gets a name, immediately prior to his savage death). However, the savvy Melissa and selfless Dante are likeable and will likely provide readers with enough sympathy to go around.

A visually engaging, irrefutably intoxicating adventure.

Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2012

ISBN: 978-0615655161

Page Count: 586

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: March 13, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.