Review: `I looked into my son's eyes and-- in a mental fastbackward--the last decades flashed in front of mine.'
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
Italian author Massimo Marino has a distinct advantage over other science fiction writers: he comes form the inside of scientific studies to bring an intrinsic flair for the realities that can either make or break a truly fine science fiction novel. He has a PhD in physics and is a computer scientist who has worked at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California in research involving particle physics (`smashing those poor particles head-on and analyze their decay products of annihilation') and then worked with Apple Inc and the World Economic Forum. He is also the co-founder of a Big Data Analytics service company called `Squares on Blue". Well prepared scientifically, but where did he learn to create such elegant prose? Perhaps from his multiple home environments! Or as he states, `I'm Italian, and because even in Italy that means everything and nothing at all, I should say, I am Sicilian. I was born in Palermo, and as it happened with countless Sicilians, I left it, back in 1986. I lived more years abroad than in my home country, and I have changed in many and different ways than my old friends there. It is always a pleasure to go back, but it is now 6 long years since my last visit. Saudade? Maybe, a little. I lived in Switzerland, France, and the United States.'How does one summarize a story about science fiction without stepping all over the surprises and incidents that make it work? THE RISE OF THE PHOENIX is the third volume of the DIAMONES TRILOGY and with each of Mario's sci-fi novels the plot summary is only part of the eveluation, so I quote the presented information: The spared ones have all recently died but Hope, the last of Dan Amenta's human daughters, but she's living her last days, too. The planet is populated with a new stronger race. Dan has seen Earth become a different world as the new civilization rises. A new neurological drug is heavily produced on Eridu which has created the path for a rapid evolution of the new humans, richness and good fortune. The past events revealed the crucial role the humans have in the galaxy organization...and made them aware of their strength. When the last spared one leaves this life, a moral obligation suddenly is no more. Things can change, and they must. A new order and a new course will put in place the events the Morai have sewn and destined to rip apart the foundations of the galaxy.'And so completes the Diamones Trilogy . Sophisticated writing, a fine sense of pacing, and the ability to create visual images of his incredible imagination is what makes this novel work well. As Marino reflects, `The Daimones Trilogy deals with many themes, from survival and the rebirth of the race of man after an alien apocalypse, to love and romance in a dying world, and the rise of new ethics and morals.' First class reading from a first class author. Grady Harp, May 14