An uplifting sci-fi work about mankind’s origins and ultimate destination.
Dimond’s (The Ascension of Mharn, 2012) ambitious sci-fi novel asks: Is humanity ready to join the citizenry of the cosmos?
After WIL, an ancient alien visitor, saves the life of a scientist’s son, WIL invites the scientist, Michael; his son, David; and Michael’s new love, Janet, on a journey of enlightenment. They experience a mind-expanding ride aboard the Corillion, a ship with almost limitless abilities to move through time and space, and meet Mharn, an alien student from the Kingdom of the Voices and the wise, beautiful spirit, Pim. They soon learn about mind sharing and spirit transfer. Mharn temporarily transforms Michael into a non-corporeal being and helps move a population of once-troubled and reckless spirit beings from an asteroid hurtling toward Earth to their home planet, Gena. After Michael and Mharn help stabilize Gena’s society and culture, Michael’s mind achieves a new level of consciousness and Mharn comes of age as the Kingdom’s new Light Prince. The author skillfully tackles deeply ingrained beliefs about the world’s origins; for example, Munkhan, an alien spirit who has occupied human bodies for centuries, challenges Darwin’s explanation of biodiversity, suggesting that the current theories of the origins of the human race are “parochial, theoretical, outdated and incomplete.” Munkhan later suggests that mankind’s future can be optimistic and egalitarian, and that it will develop a “single language in 130 years and a single voice in 150 years.” Over the course of the novel, Dimond serves up a lesson that the rise of the human race into celestial maturity will ultimately be governed by how we deal with choices and boundaries. Although the novel deals with profound ideas, some chapters are a bit overlong, such as one dealing with the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, and could have been truncated to a single paragraph. That said, the beginning and ending chapters have plenty of momentum, when Michael and his entourage first experience alien technology and philosophy and, later, with the introduction of Munkhan and his ideas.
An uplifting sci-fi work about mankind’s origins and ultimate destination.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-1453520833
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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