Publisher’s
write-up:
‘The
End Times are almost here, inevitable and predicted by astrology, numerology,
and ancient wisdom. Humanity needs a savior…but who will it be? As civilization
begins to crumble, senior citizens from around the world unite to promote
peace, and to help ensure that all people around the world unite to promote
peace, and to help ensure that all people have water, food, and shelter. Their
calling, and their sincerity, lead them to be anointed by God to identify and
train the next Avatar, the next Messiah, a new Lama. Like the Essenes of old,
they accept, but their quest threatens religious leaders worldwide, who try to
stop them…as is another mysterious individual who will stop at nothing to
destroy them. Into this whirlwind of intrigue and danger step Howard and
Bonnie, who have embraced their destiny to identify the next great spiritual
leader. Will they succeed in finding and protecting the child who must lead the
world, or will the forced arrayed against them win in the end? The future of
humanity is at stake… who will be chosen?’
Chosen is a spiritual novella with a
good mixture of elements of normal science fiction. The story is presumably
happening at a time in the future where a group of senior citizens (SASCs) led
by Howard and Bonnie and they’ve a very important task; choosing the next great
person who could set things right in the world and bring them in line with the
will of god.
However, their task is not that easy and
their mission isn’t well conceived by established religious institutions and
one of the identified candidates of Howard – Emily, that is, comes under
attack. The story revolves around the recovery of Emily – who is taken care of
by SASCs and a part of her body is replaced by a robot and subsequent to that;
her self-realisation and then, moving towards the mission of attaining enlightenment.
I did like the concept of this book – of merging
science fiction and spirituality in the same story, which is rather unusual and
I felt the author didn’t drag it too long and came straight to the point. I
really liked the parts of the book, where Emily was still recovering from the
accident, how she had to learn to use her abilities and use it towards her
mission and it was brought out very well. Moreover, unlike other stories
surrounding spirituality, the mission of the protagonist was rather unambiguous
and there was no digression from the author and last but not the least, the
story was short and sweet.
However, with that being said, I’m someone
who personally believes that it is nearly impossible to bring science and
religion in line with each other and most often, are contradictory to each
other and I found the idea of a scientist believing in a chosen one to be …
rather unusual and illogical. Moreover, I felt the, book required some consistency
– for a while, the entire story was in third person and after the departure of
Howard, it shifted to first person from Emily’s perspective and eventually,
towards the end of the book, it became a first person from her brother, Curly’s
perspective. Moreover, there were a lot of editing issues – such as using
spellings such as ‘genious’ or phrases like ‘principle mission’ but I’m willing
to overlook all those as those are errors for which, I'd always give the benefit of doubt to the author of possible oversight. Moreover, I felt the references to Christianity are
difficult for someone from other backgrounds to appreciate, including myself.
On the whole, I felt this novella is good
for light reading on a short journey and could be enjoyed by those who do
believe that science and religion can get along with each other. On the whole,
I had a satisfying experience reading this book.
Rating
– 6/10
Have
a nice day,
Andy
I had not seen this until today, many years after! Thank you for your constructive criticism. I wrote an extended version of this book, called Killing Shang-Ti. I am not sure I cured all these errors, but I built the characters more and added to the story a lot. I think I might work on it again and if I do I will keep this in mind!
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