Strieber's ongoing narrative of his encounters with some form of higher intelligence—whether through actual visitations by aliens or a kind of altered consciousness—here becomes an increasingly incredible fable of time travel, prophecy, and visions of God. As Strieber tells it, in the summer of 1954, as a nine-year- old in San Antonio, Tex., he was initiated by the aliens, or visitors, as he calls them, into a secret nighttime summer school in the woods of the nearby Olmos Basin. There a nunlike figure known as the Sister of Mercy gave Strieber and a group of other children a kind of virtual-reality helmet that allowed them to witness the cosmic collision that led to the creation of the Moon. He travels back in time to ancient Rome, where he finds that he is the tutor to the future emperor Octavius. Strieber says he learned nine lessons that summer, lessons in how we can free ourselves of the constraints of time and space, unite with the cosmos and with God, and experience true joy. Thus freed, Strieber claims for himself (and for all of us) the power of prophecy. He travels into the future and foresees a world devastated by political and economic upheaval, environmental destruction, and the US government destroyed by a nuclear bomb. He believes the calendar of the zodiac is a kind of warning system left by an ancient, advanced civilization that was destroyed by catastrophe—a warning that a similar catastrophe awaits us unless we act in time. Strieber jumbles together scientific mysteries, facts, and factoids, unanswered questions of ancient history, the myth of Atlantis, New Age spirituality, and fears of a meteoric collision with Earth to support his wacky theories. UFOs and aliens are the least part of his story now. Having fallen victim, perhaps, to millennial madness, Strieber believes himself on a mission to save the world.
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-018731-X
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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