Lightning Days
by: Colin Harvey
Published by: Swimming Kangaroo Books
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Reviewed by Patty Inglish
Lighting Days is an Award-Winning Finalist in the Fantasy/Science Fiction category of the Best Books 2006 National Book Awards.
Author Colin Harvey is a member of the Horror Writers Association and The Speculative Literature Foundation, writing since he was nine. His sci-fi novel, Lightning Days, is as interesting as the author and his memberships.
The novel is familiar in a haunting way, yet unique in its storytelling. It has a fresh UK-Australian type of flavor and exhilarating speculations. It reminds me of the 1960 film The Time Machine wherein Rod Taylor journeys back in time and befriends "cave people." In Harvey's tale, it is difficult to determine whether The Neanderthals came forward or backward in time to meet us. Perhaps they moved sideways.
Archaeologists have believed Neanderthals (Thals) were extinct since eons past. Thals were "primitive" and without cities or much technology beyond the hammer. However, just as the tongue-in-cheek GEICO caveman commercials show that to be incorrect, Lightning Days posits that Thals have always been advanced.
In the story, British soldiers not fully trained for combat (UK reservists) are stationed in Afghanistan looking for "something" that causes heat. While they do not fully understand their assignment, they find themselves dangerously facing the imminent destruction of earth via a type of time-space dimensional engineering.
The Thals survive by "shifting," some having the innate transporter ability to move between alternate earth realities. Thus, they find peace among similar races. This is hauntingly and enjoyably like a Star Trek or Outer Limits universe. Unfortunately, the Thals confront an unwelcoming race of reptilians known as Sauroids.
The Sauroids long ago decreed shifting an abomination to the reptilian God, and when they find the Thals transporting, the Sauroids pass judgment. They sentence humanity to death by destruction of all the alternate earth dimensions, including our own 2007 version.
Josh Cassidy is the British Special Agent hero, and "a tough, spiky schoolgirl fleeing the carnage that was the fall of her civilization," as Harvey describes Sophia, is the female lead in this gem. The Neanderthals are as individual as humans.
Armchair Interviews says: Teens and adults who love science fiction will enjoy this thought-provoking work.
Author's Web site: http://www.geocities.com/colin_harvey
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