BLASPHEMY by Douglas Preston

 

BLASPHEMY by Douglas Preston

From the Back Cover

The world's biggest supercollider, locked in an Arizona mountain, was built to reveal the secrets of the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself.  The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run by the world’s most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of Heaven?  Twelve scientists under the leadership of Hazelius are sent to the remote mountain to turn it on, and what they discover must be hidden from the world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped to wrest their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world…or save it.  The countdown begins…

Preston who along with Lincoln Childs has created one of the most compelling and enigmatic modern day investigator in the style of the classic Holmes and/or Poirot, more the former than the latter in the Pendergast series. He has also created some tremendous novels as a standalone author and Wyman Ford who features in this adventure is a unique creation. 

Religion for me in books is more often than not a no go feature and does not interest me as much as other books but I do read the odd Vinci code. In this book religion forms an important part of the story almost a cornerstone but what interested me most apart from the fact that I like reading his books was the way things situations and activities are manipulated by lobbyists and people with personal interest creating a spin in the story(s) to suit ones taste. This book shows us how this happens and how deniability plausible or otherwise, the weapon of defense for many a politician is a powerful tool that is widely used and abused. 

My interest in this book also stemmed because of the scientific origins of the story with the super collider and the very mystery of life, Origins.

Blasphemy deals with an obvious factor - Science vs Religion and history has been repeated across nations and continents and across the ages. Whenever these two intersect there is friction with science moving to explain every factor using cold logic and religion delving in the meta-physical with faith being one item that is not measurable unlike many other emotions, you have it or you don't, there is no middle path here. 

Here in this book the furore is caused by an individual's lure of the lucre which forces events to its tipping point. 

This is also a point of warning about stretching things when you have no control over its results and how a simple harmless looking event ends up creating a terrible nightmare that consumes thousands. 

The book details a $40 billion collider in the lines of CERN which seems to be interacting with God and therein lies the Blasphemy. 

The team managing and running the super collider are a talented group of scientists led by a maverick genius who is also a Nobel laureate. Every time they juice up the collider they start getting messages in the display presumably from God and they keep stopping the experiment to identify and remove this "glitch". 

In the outside world a lobbyist whose contract is terminated by his Native American clients (the area of the collider)  plots a plan to push things for his renewal by pushing the buttons of a televangelist whose trysts with God has been in some decline and hence is ripe for the plucking. The plot thickens as he is made to believe backed with some good hard cash that the collider is a demonic device created to blaspheme by the anti-Christ. 

This push creates a butterfly effect with a small time unknown pastor living in the shadow of the collider becoming fanatical and causing whole scale destruction.

Wyman Ford is sent by the government to understand why results and information are not forthcoming from the collider.

The book has its worth as a great read although it leaves several threads around to give an unsatisfactory abrupt ending with a new law of God.

Somehow the book has treated the super-collider as the blasphemer and seemingly its destruction renders everything back to a new normal, wholesale destruction of property and wanton deaths of thousands and billions of public money and property gone up in smoke are just fillers. 

Still this is a clever bit of storytelling and somehow Preston brings across terrifying imagery while trying to answer a basic question - Is God out there.

Please do not forget to post your comments. I am an equal opportunity person so would love to hear your love or your hate for the review or book in any order. Please write what you did not like or whether the book was an absolute disaster for you and why.

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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4716341656