Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Silver Falls Library | SF WALTON | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Ryan Oronzi is a paranoid, neurotic, and brilliant physicist who has developed a quantum military technology that could make soldiers nearly invincible in the field. The technology, however, gives power to the quantum creature known as the varcolac, which slowly begins to manipulate Dr. Oronzi and take over his mind. Oronzi eventually becomes the unwilling pawn of the varcolac in its bid to control the world. The creature immediately starts attacking those responsible for defeating it fifteen years earlier, including Sandra and Alex Kelley - the two versions of Alessandra Kelley who are still living as separate people. The two young women must fight the varcolac, despite the fact that defeating it may mean resolving once again into a single person.
Author Notes
David Walton is the author of Superposition, Quintessence, and the Philip K. Dick award-winning novel Terminal Mind. He lives near Philadelphia with his wife, seven children, and three hamsters. By day, he works on classified defense technology, which not even the hamsters are allowed to know about. Since he doesn't actually have time to write, he trained the hamsters to do it for him, with a combination of Morse clicks on their drinking bottle and cleverly-arranged pellets. David's fiction explores themes that skirt the edges of science and religion, such as human origins, the nature of truth, the certainty of death, and the nature of the soul.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
If at first you don't succeed, change the past. That lesson haunts this family drama turned world-saving exercise. As in Superposition, the Kelley family faces an invading quantum intelligence, the varcolac, which seeks to eliminate the messy multiplicity of humanity. Sisters Sandra and Alex (duplicates of an original Alessandra) attempt to decode their father's cryptic mathematical clues and master the quantum technology that allows the varcolac access to our universe. They have two goals: defeat the alien, and keep from collapsing back into a single individual. Walton infuses humor (the end of the world "will make the lines shorter on Black Friday") into his otherwise bleak look at the inevitability of humankind's self-destruction. Meditations on identity link to the ethics of changing the past in ways that help convince the reader to accept a resolution involving a worrisome but unavoidable sacrifice. Agent: Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Second part of the science-fiction/thriller duology following Superposition (April 2015). Some 15 years after the events of the previous book, its hero, physicist-turned-teacher Jacob Kelley, is placidly watching a baseball game when a terrifying, irresistible force destroys the entire ballpark. Terrorists are blamed. Kelley's daughter, Sandra, a police officer and one of the first responders, finds his body. Later that evening, Sandra gets a phone call. From her dad. Meanwhile, neurotic genius physicist Ryan Oronzi has developed the breakthrough Higgs projector technology into military-grade weaponryincluding invisibility, teleportation, and the manipulation of objects at a distanceusing the power contained in a bubble universe. Problem is, inside the bubble lurks the incomprehensible and hostile creature, the "varcolac," that caused all the trouble last time around. Fearing that it will soon break free, Ryan tries to cancel a demo which physicist/defense contractor employee Alex Kelley will attend. (Alex and Sandra were once the singular Alessandra but split into two probability waves during the previous adventure.) Sure enough, the varcolac escapes, and, during the ensuing battle, Alex shoots dead a government bigwig whose body the varcolac had absorbed. Sure that she'll be accused of murder, she flees and soon meets up with Ryan, who's figured out that she knows more than she's telling. Evidently they'll all need help from the villainous mastermind of the last piece, Jean Massey, and they prepare to spring her from jail. It would be unjust to aver that the plot doesn't add up when in fact it's incapable of any mathematical operation whatsoever, and stereotypes would be an improvement on Higgs projector-packing characters who battle evil (and each other) like manic Green Lanterns. Thrills and spills and sheer excitement on full-throttle overdrive. Just pay no attention to the wobbling scenery. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The quantum creature known as the varcolac was first introduced in Superposition when it destroyed the life of physicist -Jacob Kelly. A decade later, a young professor seems to have harnessed quantum powers in a microuniverse, right until the varcolac takes over and escapes into our world. The mix of action and science make this a solid pick for readers who like their near-future sf on the hard thriller side.-JM © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.