A sometimes-stirring space trek tale, with intriguing science and dark matter along the way.
An experienced astronaut and an untested young scientist lead a mission to the solar system’s outer reaches—where a mysterious force interferes with deep-space probes—in this novel.
In the near future, Ed Walker is an abrasive but courageous veteran NASA astronaut who manages—barely—to survive and save his crew from the harrowing end of the glitch-ridden International Space Station. Meanwhile, on the ground, young academic David Holmes is far ahead of his peers in determining that old, outward-bound space probes that reach the rim of the solar system are simply being plucked out of existence by some inexplicable force. Despite the seemingly incompatible personalities and the age gaps of the two men, an Elon Musk-like, internet/free energy billionaire with political connections forces them together to spearhead the government/private sector expedition of the Helios, a revolutionary, antimatter-powered spaceship headed out beyond the planets. The pioneering joint operation is to pave the way for human colonization, away from an Earth wracked by Sino-American wars and Islamic terror attacks toward the promise of other star systems—and perhaps to confront the ominous force that is causing the disappearance of unmanned NASA hardware. Peterson (Paradox 2, 2018, etc.) manages to satisfy (albeit in unequal measures at times) sci-fi fans of both the Arthur C. Clarke cosmic-wow variety and the more techno-minded aerospace yarn-spinners of yesteryear such as Frank G. Slaughter and Martin Caidin with their launchpad melodramas. This series opener’s middle passages sag under earthbound training exercises, plasma physics jargon, and crusty Ed’s bottomless supply of astronaut gossip about Alan Shepard and Sally Ride and his nostalgia for the lost Gemini era, when men were men and had the right stuff. But when the plot finally reaches the unknown void beyond Pluto, the payoff goes into macro-cosmic territory, the stuff of Carl Sagan’s finale to Contact—but far more bitter than that scientist/speculator’s ultimate optimism. Two other crew members, both women, register as lesser blips on the narrative’s radar, and Ed’s estranged, nagging wife fearfully demonstrates why a retirement-age pilot ace would face enigmatic and hostile aliens billions of miles away rather than go on a marital date night. A nonfiction essay-cum-bibliography by Peterson concludes the book.
A sometimes-stirring space trek tale, with intriguing science and dark matter along the way.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-977974-01-3
Page Count: 446
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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