A smart, gory, and sleazy zombiefest.
In this debut horror fantasy, bioterrorism lowers a blanket of darkness and scarcity on the world, but one woman may be capable of returning the light.
Chinese terrorist Huo Zhu Zheng released F8 in 2029. The bioweapon destroyed human and animal populations, national infrastructures, and resources worldwide —though Zheng did inoculate his own people from the sickness. Microbiologist Ruby Spencer’s unique blood made her immune to F8. She and Dr. Emory Bradshaw worked toward a cure. Then F8 mutated in animal carcasses to become ZOM-B, which spread to humans and reanimated them after death. Now, in 2032, Ruby is part of President Ava Newton’s Special Warfare Council. But the scientist would like nothing more than to spend time with her husband, Clay, and their new baby, Gabby. Instead, Ruby and Clay must visit Taiwan for a week to study captive zombies to please the president. The couple try to think of it as a late honeymoon; China and Taiwan don’t suffer the privations (food, water, and electricity rationing) that most of the world does. Awaiting them at the American Consulate is Lt. Col. Quinton “Ox” Oxford. Too bad the embittered lifelong Marine has decided to deliver Ruby and the secrets contained in her blood to President Vladimir Volkov of Russia. This twisted, sprawling tale from Ash wouldn’t be complete without a typhoon and a container ship full of zombies bearing down on her heroes’ location. The author’s bleak future is captured by this passage: “In the U.S., receiving government approval for air travel was as common as seeing a flock of birds, a herd of cattle, or a nest of rabbits. It just didn’t happen.” And while the zombie action is exceptional, readers will likely find themselves rooting for the messy demise of Ox, whose lechery boils from the page. At one point, he thinks: “The only thing better than stripping clothes off a woman was stripping her of everything she loved.” In addition, Ash offers an epic, bloodborne twist in the novel’s final third that should surprise horror fans. Ruby becomes someone not to be trifled with; a meaty sequel would be welcome.
A smart, gory, and sleazy zombiefest.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73208-161-1
Page Count: 377
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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