October 15, 2011: Vol. LXXIX, No. 20

Page 106

“Horrible bloodshed, cryptic omens and a doomsday asteroid propel this angsty Christian sci-fi saga.” from 3 juno

and Winston engage in vicious knife fights, battle hurricanes and live through a shipwreck. At the story’s climax, when the ship heads to Odessa in the Soviet Union, Jack finally discovers who he is. Collins writes with authenticity, having lived the life he relates. With the author’s vivid descriptions, the reader can feel the men’s sweat and smell the stink of the ship. The dialogue is crisp and realistic, offering glimpses into each character’s personality. Collins’ effortlessly natural, nonjudgmental voice makes for an easy read. An entertaining, poignant coming-of-age memoir.

A TINY LITTLE DOOR

Dorian, Judith CreateSpace (57 pp.) $13.25 paperback | Jul. 20, 2011 978-1461011460 An illustrated book of children’s poetry, in the spirit of Dr. Seuss. Dorian is a wordsmith and artist with a passion for creating and illustrating children’s poetry. Imaginative and expressive, Dorian’s work puts a new spin on favorite children’s topics such as getting kids to eat their vegetables, visiting magical places, bugs and making friends. Starting with “Noodle Eater,” Dorian explores how many ways one can eat a child’s favorite food— ”I like noodles made with butter / I like noodles tossed with cheese / When I eat them with black pepper / I at once begin to sneeze.” Friends such as Billy Jo Brown (“He lay in a boat parked on the grass”), Jellycake Jane (“Jane serves soup in a teapot, burnt toast on a tray”), Tom Martin MacChase (“As a child Tom could lift ninety pounds in one hand”) and the Muffin Man (“We put blueberry, strawberry, blackberry jam / On our muffins to eat with blue eggs and ham”) are lovable characters, relatable to children and adults. Dorian shines when she uses fantastic words to express everyday actions, emotions or people. Characters such as the llegoswitch, whom you should never visit because, “You’ll be grabbed, and twittered and stuck in a ditch / and tossed 40 feet high in the air,” aren’t frightening. Rather, the play on words conjures up images of a magical, fun-loving animal. But it is to Dorian’s greatest credit that she makes the most dreaded experience for a child the most fun; her poems about food allow children to have no fear to tread into the unknown of new items. “Come along, come on with me to Daredevil’s Hope / I’ll buy all the drinks you can drink / a pineapple-didouble-dipberry-lope / Till you find you can no longer think.” There’s also a chance to try Grasshopper Jam (as well as dragonfly pie and curried ant soup). Dorian brings the reader completely into her world in the books’ titular poem, where she welcomes readers to a magical room that can only be entered by saying the magic word Kaladoosha-mangopipick-eeriedeeriepurd. Brightly colored, textilelike illustrations by the author accompany many of the poems, enriching the reading experience with their childlike exuberance. If the parents can pronounce the made-up words properly, a fun time will be had by all.

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15 october 2011

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kirkus indie

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3 JUNO

Gregory, William Michael CreateSpace (316 pp.) $12.00 paperback | $9.00 e-book Jan. 26, 2011 978-1456558949 Horrible bloodshed, cryptic omens and a doomsday asteroid propel this angsty Christian sci-fi saga. When archaeologist Jonah Lamb unearths a scroll in the Holy Land containing the prophecy that “a rock thrown by the priestess Juno will strike the earth,” his astrophysicist friend Martin Henley connects it to the comet that’s about to hit asteroid 3 Juno and knock it onto a collision-course with earth. Rejecting an invitation from snobby plutocrats to join them on their space station, Martin and Jonah activate a project to preserve a saving remnant in an “Ark”—a nuclear-powered bunker in Idaho where a young man and woman, thousands of frozen embryos, a garden and a two-by-two collection of animals will wait in cryogenic slumber to repopulate Earth once the asteroid radiation subsides in a few decades. All they need is a watchman, and who, they wonder, could be better than David Keyes, a doctor who has been in an alcoholic stupor ever since his family was slaughtered by psychopaths in the novel’s grisly opening chapter? David is dubious, but with God’s prompting he accepts the lonely mission to watch over the bunker’s sleeping “Adam” and “Eve.” Alas, every Eden has its serpent, and the devil’s murmured temptations prod David toward a crisis of faith—with all Creation hanging in the balance. The author crafts an arresting end-of-days scenario and invests his hero’s predicament—alone and despondent, David can never quite tell whether he is sane or delusional—with real pathos. The story often gets derailed by mythic and spiritual flourishes; there are extended scenes of the showdown between David and Goliath and the crucifixion of Jesus, and mystic soliloquies becalm the narrative. (“When you make the two into one and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower…then you too will enter the kingdom of heaven.”) Gregory’s pastiche of biblical and sci-fi motifs can feel contrived and heavy-handed. A tech-heavy reimagining of Genesis and the Book of Revelation, with hit-and-miss results.

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