To infinity and beyond

Holly: Stephen King

Stephen King returns to a character who has become a regular player in several of his stories from the past 10 years.

Holly Gibney.

She was a major character in the “Mr. Mercedes”/Bill Hodges trilogy. She was a supporting character in “The Outsider.” She was featured in the novella “If It Bleeds,” which was part of a collection of stories under the same title.

Now, she is the main character in King’s latest novel, “Holly.”

Holly Gibney started as a shy recluse who spent most of her life watching old movies under the roof and thumb of her oppressive mother. Throughout the “Mr. Mercedes” trilogy, she transformed into an intuitive detective under the tutelage of Bill Hodges, an aging, retired cop working as a private eye.

Holly is now a private investigator who runs Finders Keepers, a detective agency. Holly still loves movies, likes to be alone and continues dealing with her neuroses but she has become a sharp and courageous investigator as well as a true friend to the people she loves and who love her.

In her appearances in a half-dozen King books, Holly has been involved in worldly criminal cases as well as otherworldly criminal cases. In both scenarios, she deals with the kind of bad guys that Stephen King has made a fortune creating – grim folks, indeed.

In “Holly,” she’s up against a serial killing team – a married octogenarian couple of retired professors who believe their vitality is restored by the flesh of the young people they trick into captivity. Nothing supernatural but a chilling scenario.

Sharing this information gives nothing away since King jumps back and forth from Holly’s investigation and the couple’s activities from beginning to end of the book. The fun is watching Holly Gibney and her familiar cast of young supporting characters figure out the case page by page.

The majority of the story is set during the upswing of covid cases in 2021 so readers can expect some thoughts about vaccines and masks throughout “Holly.”

King proves he’s still at the top of his game. and fans of Holly Gibney should find more to love about this recurring character. Hopefully, King will return to her on more occasions in the future.

To Infinity and Beyond: Neil DeGrasse Tyson with Lindsey Nyx Walker

Looking for the new book “To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery,” one may expect the author to be Buzz Lightyear.

Instead, the author is the almost equally well-known Neil DeGrasse Tyson – the astrophysicist who blends hard science with pop culture sensibilities to make for a readable exploration into the origins of our world, solar system, galaxy and the universe.

And that’s what readers will find here.

Chapters delving into what it’s like to leave the Earth’s atmosphere, traveling the solar system or as Tyson refers to this chapter “Touring the Sun’s Backyard,” pushing “Into Outer Space” and then “To Infinity and Beyond” as Buzz Lightyear said in the “Toy Story” movies and as Tyson concludes his book of the same name.

Along the way, Tyson dips into the development of balloons to rocket technology, how air has weight, the billionaire space race, gravity in space, the red spot on Jupiter, the rings around Saturn, how Pluto should have never been considered a planet in the first place, where “outer space” begins, the speed of light, light as a particle, how time is relative, black holes, super novae, etc. Several facts on each and every one of the 300-plus pages.

All in a mostly easy to understand style mixed with short biographies and cultural and pop references from Icarus flying too close to the sun to why Tom Cruise’s Maverick would have been putty had his character really bailed out of a plane careening at 10.5 Mach to “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” intergalactic travel methods to how the Incredible Hulk is just that since Bruce Banner or anyone else could not increase their mass – where does that additional mass come from? Incredible? Impossible, Tyson notes.

Tyson and co-writer Lindsey Nyx Walker create a magnificent tour of what’s out there that should expand your knowledge by blowing your mind.