A sunny, swashbuckling creaturefest ripe with pithy characterizations.
In this historical fantasy, Christopher Columbus hunts for the mythical Atlantis.
The year is 1492, and Spain has just defeated the Moors at Granada. After an excursion to Istanbul, Columbus, the renowned rake and explorer, returns to Córdoba. There, he reunites with his royal patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. During a clandestine meeting between Columbus and Isabella in her bed chamber, the captain of the Santa María acts on his knowledge that Plato knew the location of the fabled city of Atlantis. He tilts a copy of Plato’s Timaeus on a bookshelf and reveals a secret treasure room. Within is a bronze disc that may lead to the lost city and Poseidon’s Trident, which can turn anything into gold. Then Ferdinand and his toady, Amerigo Vespucci, discover the pair. The adultery exposed, Columbus races from the palace to the docks. He and his crew immediately set sail west, but not before a shadowy figure sneaks aboard the Santa María, and Vespucci determines to follow with the Niña and Pinta. When nearly a month passes with no leads on Atlantis—and after the revelation that a 12-year-old named Nyx has stowed away—the ship suddenly faces off against a giant, tentacled monstrosity. In his latest novel, Robinson (Robinson Crusoe 2246, 2016) imagines a playful left turn for the controversial figure who brought ruin to several Indigenous societies. This Columbus fights dirty like Indiana Jones and is a caddish goof (“I do like the smoldering types,” he replies to Isabella’s mention of Joan of Arc). On his greedy quest, the explorer encounters hideous, birdlike sirens but also the beautiful Princess Elara. Time-tested fantasy components like quick-healing potions, an ancient prophecy, and magic keys are sublime in juxtaposition with historical figures. Young Nyx blossoms under readers’ eyes, acting as a foil for the cynical Columbus and teaching that human bonds matter more than material gain. The author’s agile creativity will leave audiences itchy for a sequel.
A sunny, swashbuckling creaturefest ripe with pithy characterizations.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-79087-598-6
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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