The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin

☆☆☆☆This review contains spoilers☆☆☆☆

The Boys From Brazil is a phenomenal film from the early eighties, and now to find the movie is based on a book by the notable author Ira Levin surprised me immensely.

Before launching myself into the horror I knew would be ahead of me, I contemplated on the quality of the storyteller, would I feel saddened by the inferiority of the book compared to the film or would I believe the book was at least equal or superior to the adaptation?

The film, starring Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, brought the story of future Hitlers to the screen that is spellbinding. Except for a few editing problems and the obligatory sex scene, the story works in a way that is driven by dread in a delightful way.

The flow of the book is effortless, and I'm sure every writer would wish to possess the talent of Levin, who weaves a story that guides us where he wishes the reader to blindly follow, and we follow willingly. 

Cloning is a chilling prospect to think of, and consistent in books and movies, it's shown as someone's despair--frequently the cloned being whose body parts may be desired.

Levin chooses to make the cloned beings as living Gods to nazis and living monsters to the rest of the world. 

The thought of Mengele's success in cloning ninety-four Hitlers by his vile and inhuman experiments during WWII on innocent children creates a story filled with an unfairness that is hard to fathom.

The atrocities of Mengele and all the other monsters, from Hitler down to the lowest echelon, should be told. Every human on earth should know the stories of the innocent in hopes this will never happen again. I'm one of those persons that shy away from the stories of the horror-filled lives so many endured--the pain is too overwhelming sometimes to bear, especially when children are involved.

The Boys From Brazil tells the horror yet also tells an interesting tale of madness, that we feel safe in knowing will never come true. Though somewhere in a secret vault of evil beings, is there a vial of Hitler's DNA waiting patiently for science to catch up?

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

We've all seen parents who are slightly abusive to their children in public settings--which always brings to mind how are these children treated in private?
In reality, essentially all parents love their children, even the abusive ones(their knowledge of parenting is nil) though they're  those few who don't care and would rather slap every time, and they never mete out a single hug.

That's exactly the premise of this story which transpires in the distant future. Every time a child cries, a slap will occur if the mother's nearby. Children aren't hugged or loved, and no one feels the need to reach out with tenderness or caring for others. This is a fascinating glimpse at a village, where every human is severely dysfunctional, resulting from the sick and defective parenting of each home.

The village offers no order or stability as when the men prepare for a hunt. All the spears are assembled rather hazardously, and the men fight for the best weapons, frequently men become injured before their quest has started.
The story of Kira shows what happens to a young crippled girl that was saved due to her mother's strength that fought off efforts to throw Kira into the field to die.
After her mother's death, her world becomes newly structured and she's sheltered in a way she only dreamed of before, but at what cost to Kira and two others she shares her life with?

Thank God that love still flows in our world, and humanity still possesses immense empathy for each other. Selfishness still exist, though we would never turn our heads away from the abuse of children or murder people for their defects.

The only problem I have with this book is the ending, and I hope the third in the series will expand the story.

After The Event by T. A. Williams

This review contains spoilers.

Another book on the end of  life's existence for countless humans-- not that there is anything wrong with another story containing diseases, horrible lunatics, starvation, destruction and so much more fun.

Before the events of this book take place, there's an extensive amount of back story concerning the father, named Grant and his four children. Grant's past includes running out continuously on his family, addiction, selfishness and as his wife lay dying, he was somewhere else taking care of his own needs as usual.

As the world begins the downward journey of  human destruction, Grant takes his motherless children to his father's farm. His oldest son hates him and believes Grant will let them all down yet again, but Grant fights his addiction and continues to win.

They barely survive the winter when suddenly horror is thrust upon them. Modern day pirates, though land pirates, descend upon their farm and create havoc, kidnapping, and murder.

This is where the story turns to such sadness that I could hardly continue reading. Grants young son is killed by the bandits, and his daughter taken.

I know that children would die if this story came true, but reading such sadness is hard to bear. Children die all too often in the real world--why shouldn't they live in books. 

There could be a worldwide referendum to prevent the death of children until they are the age of 18 in all future books punishable by some horrendous sentence. 

I plan to read the next book in the series name Remnants though I'm sure it contains more sadness to be endured.

Yesterday's Kin by Nancy Kress

May contain spoilers.
The worst element of Aliens landing on our Earth would be their intent of good or evil. Not everyone views good and evil as absolute, and in the beginning, the intentions of the aliens in this book are difficult to decipher.
The aliens, that land on our world, aren't complete strangers--they are part of our ancestors that somehow broke off and moved to a distant planet far, far away.
They tell a tale of a spore cloud coming our way within one Earth year, and will hit their planet within twenty-five years. The spores are deadly to the aliens and subsequently deadly to humans.
The aliens set up labs with all the top scientist of the world to find a cure for humans and the quasi-humans also.
One aspect of the story that I consider appealing portrays the primary character who's a middle-aged woman. She's a scientist at a leading university with three grown children. She doesn't have a man and doesn't seem to be looking for one. She threw out her alcoholic husband years earlier, and she concentrates on her work and occasionally her grown children.
Books rarely show a woman, moving up in years, worth anyone's scrutiny in this age of youth and beauty, so this is an immense credit to the writer.
As time moves on she becomes depressed when thinking back on the mother that worked too much, and the mother that couldn't find the secret formula to give her children what they needed.
As the book moves on, her regrets become  perceptible, which leads her down the path of anger, bitterness and regret. I recognize this woman since I have felt these same feelings towards my children, and I've spent copious amounts of sleepless nights contemplating my own maternal defects.
I wish in the end that she lost her frustratingly fatalistic perspective, and after learning a large percentage of the population on our planet will live, including her other two children and grandchild (left on earth), that she would have grasped onto happiness for the human race. Maybe, as time moves on and the pain of her loss diminishes, she will find the ample hope that she needs in her life.