Review: Excellent Science Fiction Exploration of a Dystopian Future
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 24, 2013
"Stars and Scorpions" is the second book in the After Eden sci-fi thriller series, but I think a reader could easily enjoy it alone (I didn't read the first book but didn't feel lost).It's set in a futuristic world where the U.S. president wants to eradicate religion, Pagans are in control but fear the Muslims and Chinese, and Jew-Christians (as the book calls them) live on the outskirts.  Rabbi Susan, in America, helps a woman named Klara Heidel and unleashes a great evil; in Mexico, Father Marcos finds himself swept up in the resistance.Part of what makes "Stars and Scorpions" so readable is how easily it seems our own world could flow into it--our modern-day dependence on and obsession with personal machines, the trouble in the Middle East, the increasingly inflammatory debates between the conservative right and the liberal left. The world the author describes is both fascinating and horrifying, amazing technology existing side by side with brutal violence and corruption. (The evil baby and the scorpion creatures even move beyond the realm of sci to horror, at least to me.) While I personally found Father Marcos to be the more compelling, sympathetic character, all of the book is interesting. I think it's important to note it's not exactly a light read--you really need to pay attention to dates, places, and characters--but I would recommend it to those who enjoy political thrillers, futuristic science fiction, and epic sagas.