A Wrinkle in Time

Meg Murry is branded the troublesome teen and her family tops amongst the local gossip topics owing to the disappearance of Meg’s father and the  unexplained mystery surrounding her youngest brother Charles Wallace. The troubled family tries to be as normal as possible but fails due to a deadly secret…tesseract. One dark stormy night, the Murrays are visited by strange angelic beings calling themselves Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which who vaguely indicate the whereabouts of Meg’s father. Next day, the Murrays are joined by Calvin O’Keefe, a boy from Meg’s school who is drawn to them by an unknown instinct as he calls it.

Guided by Charles Wallace, Meg and Calvin are tessered or tesseracted by the angels to their world where they are informed of their father’s efforts to overthrow an evil being called IT. As you can surmise by now, the 3 children are up against an evil ambiguous entity that is quite busy conquering the solar systems. The secret to overthrow an emotionless cold being is through projection of emotions. Only glitch is that Meg can annoy readers more easily then IT. 20 pages into the story, you’ll realize the underlying importance of religion in the book. Remember Chronicles of Narnia?!

Notable theme in the entire series is the concept of Tesseract which appears to be synonymous with Wormholes. And although not really established or proven, seems very realistic. And then there is the rather not so subtle messages about Christianity through the angelic beings and their world that rises akin to heaven. As for the children – Meg is angry, wary and well clumsy. These “unique” traits help her in the fight against IT. Charles Wallace with his ability to read people and his instincts makes him the hero of the ongoing series. And Calvin’s powerful communication skills help the group out of tough spots.

Madeleine L’Engle’s sci-fi fantasy novel appears to merge the boundaries between science, philosophy and religion in a mundane and messy sort of manner. As a result, it tends to diminish the attention span of the readers and you’ll find yourself drifting to your TBR pile to pick another book by page 20. If you loved Chronicles of Narnia then this is the book for you! Else don’t even try it.

Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles

Its been a long while since I read any sic-fi novels so I picked The Martian Chronicles on a whim. The book is known for its unique structure which includes independent stories as short as a 1 pager yet  blending as episodes to create a larger cohesive narrative. In the words of the author Ray Bradbury, the inspiration came from the works of John Steinbeck and Sherwood Anderson.The book follows a “future history” structure with a hint of dystopia wherein the stories are set in a chronological order beginning in January 1999, with each story having a thin framework with an ending.

The story begins with Earth’s first expedition to Mars. Chapter 2 dwells on the Martian civilization that exists during the 1999 period, focusing on their lives and their efforts in thwarting 3 expeditions from Earth attempting to make the contact. The 4th expedition headed by Captain Wilder is successful owing to the fact that a human-borne disease kills all the inhabitants. And with it begins the endless migrations from Earth to Mars with people trying to get away from their lives on Earth…to begin a new life. Do they succeed or do they fail? Do humans learn from their mistakes or does Mars become yet another dumpster for supporting the ever-growing population of Earth?

This is certainly one of the most interesting and intriguing novels I’ve read so far. The stories present a puzzle for readers to unlock and within that puzzle is a wealth of wisdom on some of the issues that continue to plague humanity to this day. One of the dialogues that goes between Spender and Captain Wilder in the 4th expedition goes thus..

“They quit trying too hard to destroy everything, to humble everything. They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful…An Earth man thinks: ‘In that picture, color does not exist, really’…A Martian, far cleverer, would say:’It is a fine picture. It came from the hand and mind of a man inspired. Its idea and color are from life. This thing is good.“

And then there is a beautiful description of Time in another chapter…

“What did Time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids and rain…“

Bradbury’s narrative and dialogues are written such that the pearls of wisdom are hidden in between and left for readers to decipher them. You can choose to either skim through the book and leave it or read page by page and understand what the author intends to convey. There is no one particular character or protagonist to this story…an amalgamation of characters that get their 1 minute highlight through that one little chapter. On the whole, this captivating chronicles is a must-read!!

Black Order

Black Order is the 3rd installment in the Sigma Series by James Rollins. The book covers Gray Pierce and his team’s adventures as they race against time and a bunch of dangerous fanatics to find out a cure for a degenerative disease caused at Quantum levels.

1945 May 4, we see a scientist die trying to save a perfect blue eyed boy from the Germans. The boy is taken in by a Polish priest. Cut to the present day…

Gray Pierce is busy trailing a pair of twins at an auction in Copenhagen while his director Peter Crowe was last seen at a buddhist village in the himalayas where mysterious lights were noticed. A new character, Dr. Lisa Cummings gets embroiled in this latest adventure when she unknowingly volunteers to accompany a monk to the village.

The monks are dead…having suffered with a mysterious illness that strips them of their sanity. That and being chased by a hulky German just sums up the situation under which Lisa meets Crowe and the Germans – Anna and her brother Gunther who have access to a mysterious device. There is more to the mysterious lights it seems…for they are produced by the Bell, a quantum measuring device aka a zero point energy generator, with the potential to alter the process of evolution as well as create a new race of superhumans.

Enter an ancient, rich family with German roots in South Africa who knows more than what they reveal about the Bell and are determined to destroy the world with this deadly knowledge. The events occur simultaneously in 4 different places – South Africa, Nepal, Washington and Denmark. The plot throws abundant information on Nazi mysticism, Runes symbolising the Black Sun while playing around with the concepts of superhumans. A typical mishmash found in a scifi thriller.

Darwin’s theories have always been contested by modern science…but these very same theories combined with Planck’s Quantum Physics form the base for this plot.

The Five Greatest Warriors

I finally hunted down this book on Amazon since I was feeling too lazy to visit B&N and am I so happy that I finished this book. The 3rd and the final instalment in the Jack West Jr. series by Mathew Reilly is a quest to discover the secret lairs of the 5 greatest warriors that the Earth would’ve ever seen.

The story starts off with the cliffhanger from the prequel where we see Jack falling into an abyss but he overcomes death as usual. Jack’s team guided by Wizard discover that the only way to overcome the Dark Sun’s power is by activating an ancient geological machine at Earth’s core. The only way to activate this machine is to place 6 diamond-like pillars, all cleansed, atop the base of six gargantuan pyramids hidden across 6 different locations on Earth. The clues in this book are Rameses, Jesus, Genghis Khan and Napoleon. The fifth warrior is a mystery.

So Jack and his team…which is battered a lot during this instalment races against time and their enemies – the Carnivore, Wolf/ West Sr., Scimitar and Vulture, Chinese forces headed by Mao Gangli and the Japanese army to resurrect these pillars to save the chaotic world. Not only that but they travel across the globe covering places like Mongolia, Britain, Lundy Island, Easter Island, Indian Ocean, Japan, China, Eastern Russia, New Zealand and Israel/Jordan.

Alliances are made and broken, people are murdered and Jack receives one of the gifts of the pillar…Sight while Lily receives the ultimate gift unexpectedly. While the end is predictable…its how you reach there is what the mystery is about. For good measure…the romance between Jack and Zoe is also highligted which was brewing I suppose since 2nd instalment.

The characters evolved a lot since their adventure in the 6 Sacred Stones and every character is thrown in a new light in this adventure. I really don’t like Lily a lot since I kind of feel she’s a bit obnoxious from having so much knowledge but then that’s my perspective. On the whole its a great read for all those adventure, sci-fi fans out there.

Green: Book Zero: The Beginning and the End

First off I haven’t read any of the previous books by Ted Draker. So this becomes my first book. And of what I’ve read in this book, I felt that it was well written and well thought out. For people who don’t know the story, Green: Book Zero and its sequels deal with an alternate future where 2 tribes are at war – Circle, followers of Elyon and the Horde.

The protagonist is Thomas Hunter who has escaped Earth into an alternate future and leads a band of people called the Forest Dwellers. This group remains impassive to the havoc wreaked by the Horde in abiding with Elyon’s wishes to maintain peace. But Hunter’s son Samuel is out to avenge the band and sets out to kill the Horde’s leader Qurong who is also Hunter’s father-in-law.

Meanwhile on the Earth, events are happening in parallel…ones that may change the course of future on both the worlds. Although Thomas has left the 21^st century on Earth, a pharmaceutical firm has samples of his blood. But someone out there is desperate to get the blood samples to follow Hunter into the alternate world.

Now what transpires as a consequence and how the events unfold is what makes this book an interesting read. The concept of redemption is well tackled not to mention the approach that Draker took to depicting the unfolding of yet another apocalyptic event. Again I haven’t read the bible so can’t comment but a lot of other readers say it is an allegory to David’s struggle in the gospel.

Green is considered both a sequel and a prequel bringing the series full circle. It definitely is packed with a lot of action and well worth reading at least once. I got this book as part of the Thomas Nelson Blogger club.

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