Entertainer-educator Crichton, that clever devil, has done it again—by dressing up one of the oldest book/movie scenarios around with enough capsulized science, history, and geography to keep readers happily on their toes. It's an expedition to darkest Africa, to the northeast corner of the Congo rain forest in Zaire, in search of a lost city (Zinj) full of diamonds and danger. Old hat, right? Wrong. Because this expedition, led by Karen Ross of Earth Resources Technology Services (ERTS) in Houston, is the nth degree in hi-tech—portable computers, laser-beam navigation, satellite TV-hookup with Houston—and the juxtaposition of super-gadgetry with nature at its wildest is simply splendid. Furthermore, since a previous ERTS trek to Zinj was decimated by gorilla-like creatures (according to videotape analysis), primate expert Peter Elliot is along; and with him is adorable gorilla Amy—who understands English and is fluent in sign language. (By coincidence, Amy's been having nightmares about a city that looks just like legendary Zinj.) So there's lively lecture material a-plenty—computers, zoology, linguistics, Congo botany, etc.—as Karen, Peter, Amy, and mercenary Munro (what used to be the Robert Shaw role) head towards Zinj via parachute jump, river-rapids, and mountain-climbing. . . while fending off cannibals, an angry hippo, guided missiles, and sophisticated sabotage by a rival German-Japanese team. (The Zinj diamonds are the raw material for computer-chips that will revolutionize everything.) And when they do arrive at Zinj, where the rival team has been massacred, the ERTS team is soon under attack by this odd mutant killer-gorilla species—descendants of apes who were long ago trained to be ruthless guards of the diamond hoard. Thanks to Amy, however, the team learns enough gorilla lingo to drive the killers off, they find the diamond lode, Karen insists on blasting—and so a nearby volcano erupts, necessitating a balloon-escape finale for this thoroughly diverting diversion. True, Crichton's short-chaptered, constantly challenging smorgasbord approach doesn't quite disguise the lack of genuinely developed storytelling here, and one ends up feeling just slightly cheated: many of the provocative questions raised are never really resolved. But Dr. C. is one of the world's great explainers. And his fascinating lineup of scientific toughies-made-easy, along with the African scenery and the agreeably sentimental Peter/Amy relationship, makes this—page for page—the classiest junk-food entertainment in quite some time.
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1980
ISBN: 0061782556
Page Count: 499
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1980
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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