Matt Alacrán has spent his youth secreted away in a secluded hut, his only knowledge of the world provided by his caregiver Celia and his view out the window on the white ocean of poppies growing all around. Matt is a clone, an outcast hated and feared as a beast by human society. When he uses an iron cooking pot to smash his window and goes out into the world, Matt sets into motion a fantastic adventure in a land called Opium, a strip of land between the US and a place once called Mexico. Opium is ruled by El Patrón, a 142-year-old drug lord, inhabited by “eejits”—docile farm workers controlled by brain implants—and overseen by an army of bodyguards. Farmer’s tale is a wild, futuristic coming-of-age story with a science-fiction twist: How do you find out who you are when what you are is a clone—a photograph—of a human being. How have you come to exist, and for what purpose? Can you ever expect to be more than what you were designed to be? As demonstrated in The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (1994), Farmer has a talent for creating exciting tales in beautifully realized, unusual worlds. With undertones of vampires, Frankenstein, dragons’ hoards, and killing fields, Matt’s story turns out to be an inspiring tale of friendship, survival, hope, and transcendence. A must-read for SF fans. (Fiction. 11+)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-85222-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Richard Jackson/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...
In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.
As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
A lightweight, action-packed space adventure.
A diplomatic mission to a newly discovered human colony immediately goes pear-shaped for a Skyward Flight escort detachment when drone ships attack.
Supporting characters from the Skyward series take center stage in this spinoff trilogy opener that combines heavy military action with relationship drama. Still pining for his purple-skinned flight mate, Alanik, flightleader Arturo Mendez suddenly also finds himself in charge of persuading the long-isolated residents of Blightfall (who have “three genders—male, female, and agendered”) that the war with the Superiority is over after the diplomats he was escorting are killed in a sneak attack. Although many plot points don’t hold up to scrutiny, the story features lots of aerial dogfights, narrow escapes, struggles with a rogue AI, and even some gladiatorial arena action—more than enough to fill in the gaps between exchanges of banter, awkward boy-girl fumbling, and repeated efforts to teach an alien how to tell “your mother” jokes. Along with being diverse in both species and human race, the large ensemble cast features many adorable aliens, led by the cytonic hyperslug sidekicks that expedite the instantaneous travel of Arturo and his squad and are in essence talking puppies. Readers ought to be in turn dazzled by the cuteness, adrenalized by the fighting, and charmed to see Arturo and Alanik kiss at last. Schematic images of select structures and spacecraft between narrative sections add visual detail.
A lightweight, action-packed space adventure. (Science fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9780593707050
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
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