A compelling premise that’s strengthened by solid scientific explanations, well-rounded characters, and nail-biting suspense.
A soldier travels back in time to prevent the 9/11 attacks and save his wife’s life in debut author Todd’s first sci-fi thriller in a duology.
On Sept. 10, 2001, Maj. Kyle Mason, a sandy-haired, green-eyed, and chiseled U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, can’t believe his luck: “He was newly wed to the most beautiful woman on the planet, and he was at the zenith of his career.” His 35-year-old wife, Padma Mahajan, a few years his senior, is the vice president of a Wall Street investment bank with offices in the World Trade Center. After the next day’s disastrous events, Kyle’s life is torn asunder; grief-stricken, he spirals downward into depression and resigns his commission. Then, in 2008, Gen. Aaron Craig asks him, “Major, what if you could change everything?” Kyle, reinstated as a lieutenant colonel, soon joins a secret research project in Nevada that’s been operating for decades. Scientists have constructed a time machine, and the project’s mission is to avert the 9/11 attacks by assassinating the hijackers before they can carry out their plan. Although Kyle and his partner, Col. Annika Wise, are highly prepared, they face unexpected difficulties on the mission, which takes a surprising turn. Todd grippingly conjures a what-if time-travel scenario that’s unusually believable. His time machine’s origin and development have a strong, plausible basis, and his characters’ backstories and personalities provide realistic motivations. The research project also makes a thorough case for choosing 9/11 as a vital historical inflection point—not only because of the attacks’ impact, but also because the activities and locations of the hijackers before the events are well known. As the main characters carry out their exciting mission and remake history, readers will find it intensely satisfying, and the cliffhanger ending promises new thrills to come.
A compelling premise that’s strengthened by solid scientific explanations, well-rounded characters, and nail-biting suspense.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-52240-1
Page Count: 410
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
