Genre:
Sci-Fi/Crime
Description:
“Applegate
Bogdanski returns from Vietnam with a missing leg, a Purple Heart,
and an addiction to morphine. He stumbles through each day, looking
forward to nothing and hoping it will arrive soon. When he attempts
to thwart a crime, he is knocked unconscious and wakes up to discover
that people are once again calling him a hero, though he feels
undeserving of the praise.
Apple
returns to work and meets Angela, a mysterious woman who claims to be
his guardian. Immediately, he feels a connection to her, which morphs
into an attraction. But he soon discovers that Angela is much more
than she seems.
Apple and
Angela are swept up in a conspiracy that stretches through time and
space. Together, they must fight to save everything they hold dear
from an alien race bent on destroying humanity.”
Author:
“After
retiring in 2009, Arthur M. Doweyko took up writing fiction. His
novel Algorithm
garnered a 2010 Royal Palm Literary Award, and is also available in
paperback. He has published a number of short stories, many of which
have been selected as Finalists in the Royal Palm Literary Award
contest, and two Honorable Mentions in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of
the Future Contest.
Arthur was
awarded the 2008 Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award for his contribution
to the discovery of Sprycel, a novel anti-cancer drug successfully
brought to the marketplace in 2009. He has authored over one hundred
publications (papers, abstracts, patents, book chapters) and has been
an invited lecturer in a number of drug-discovery and computational
venues.
Arthur
lives in Florida with the love of his life, Lidia. When he’s not
writing, he’s happily wandering the beaches.”
More about
Mr. Doweyko on his website or follow him on Facebook.
Appraisal:
This
is a mashup of book genres which, like most hybrids, fizzes with
energy. It is set mainly in New York in 1975. As well as apparent
guardian angels and an imminent ‘end of the world as we know it’
scenario, there is a new theory of Creation; murder, burglary and
general mayhem; and a cast of interesting characters it is easy to
root for: there is plenty going on.
Doweyko has
an economical, straightforward style which pushes the book along at a
goodly clip. Plenty of humour - black, slapstick and ironical - is
employed as a well-judged leaven to the running, fighting, and gory
bits, of which there are plenty. In addition the author delivers
pithy and interesting description of how ‘Apple’ lost his leg in
‘Nam, the second-hand bookshop where he works and the various
locations in New York, London, and Tibet (yes, Tibet) which all help
to drive the book along.
Tibet. Yes.
The characters really get around, so the reader needs to pay
attention. I like this sort of surprise, the location shifts are well
signposted and the changes quickly bed in. None of the scene changes
are gratuitous. Tibet is essential if for no other reason than we
meet two delightful characters there, whom I enjoyed very much. The
epilogue to the book, when these two are returned to the bosoms of
their families, is quite delightful.
The book
reminded me slightly of Dr. Who, in that someone frequently yells
‘run!’ at his or her companions. That sort of frenetic solution
to plotting needs to be very well focused, and used sparingly, to be
effective. In a similar vein, people who quite patently should be
dead of their injuries, who are described as dead, and are mourned or
celebrated as being dead, keep coming back to life and then being
killed all over again. This sort of ploy also needs to be used more
sparingly than it is here. There are some characters who are
significantly more powerful than others – to the point where at
times this reader questioned the need for the ordinarily-abled to be
on the team. And, finally, the reader is clouted with the (thinnish)
reason why the world needs to end rather too frequently. The sum
total of which infelicities have lost the book a star.
Nevertheless,
the quality of the writing is good enough to transcend that sort of
thing, and I think you will find this book an engaging read if you
like your crime a bit off the wall and/or your SF rooted in the here
and now. And if you have a thing about Tibet it should leave you with
a big, goofy grin on your face. It did me.
FYI:
Nothing to report
Format/Typo
Issues: No problems.
Rating:
**** Four Stars
Reviewed
by: Judi Moore
Approximate
page count: 65-70,000 words
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