A futuristic novel with insufficient worldbuilding.
A man who lives in a future peaceful world ruled by a religious government finds himself questioning his circumstances in Sims's second book of a planned trilogy.
Paul Watanabe lives in a post-Armageddon world that has been without war for hundreds of years. A Jerusalem-based, Big Brother-esque government headed by Christ-figure Lord Emmanuel rules the planet. People live to be hundreds of years old, famine is unknown and there are rules for everything, from how to get married to how to choose a career. Everything’s fine as long as one follows the rules, but Watanabe is vaguely unhappy. Middle portions of trilogies often wind up as placeholders, setting up events for the final installment while not providing much in the way of significance, and this is the fate here. The novel, which is essentially one of conversations, sees little action. Characters have long discussions with each other, but unfortunately these heart-to-hearts don’t generally advance the plot. Chapters begin and end with insignificant actions, providing little incentive to read further. While the future world is unusual—none of that typical scene of humans fighting machines on a blasted landscape here—there’s not enough description of it. Occasionally, the author opens the curtain to reveal a bit of the realm, and the book comes to life, such as when an archeological find prompts the characters to discuss the rationale behind a store being called Best Buy. But then the curtains shut again, and yet more conversations ensue, ending any momentum gained. Author Sims nimbly moves around his large cast of characters, but the reader never gets to understand the motivation for any except Watanabe.
A futuristic novel with insufficient worldbuilding.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478314646
Page Count: 344
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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
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