The Finger of God (2009)

Author Keith Williams
Publisher Equilibrium Books
Length 272 pages
Genre SciFi
Blurb None Listed
Country

Talk us through it

Jordie MacAlister has retired to the West Coast of Scotland after a heart murmur prematurely finished his career as a NASA Astronaut. Throwing Jordie's life into further disarray is the recent death of his beloved wife, a victim of cancer. Just when seclusion seems the order of the day the entire top-secret NASA database is inexplicably downloaded to Jordie's computer.

Knowing he is in deep doggy doo Jordie seeks advice from his friend Alan Sinclair, a noted conspiracy theorist. They decide to hide the download from the Authorities as Sinclair starts sifting through the data to get some idea why Jordie ended up on the receiving end of it.

With NASA security chief Maurice Wambaugh and local Scotland Yard Detectives Melanie Gordon and David McGregor on the case Jordie and Sinclair have to keep things under wraps as they delve into some shocking secrets NASA are not keen to make public. But what is the red crater that has appeared near Geelong in NSW and how is it connected to the errant NASA data?

The chances of anything coming from Mars just got a hell of a lot more likely.

Review

"It is an incredible tale and if you were to read it in a book you would think the author had a vivid imagination." - Maurice Wambaugh

The Finger of God is Keith Williams' first published novel and follows his highly regarded Dark Beckoning collection of short stories. Yes we'll get to the collection in due course. In his debut novel Williams adds Science Fiction, stirs in thriller concepts, and seasons with a heaped table spoon of horror, producing a solid novel that will leave you begging for more. I was left asking for a second helping, let's fire up the boasters and check it out.

Williams approaches the novel as an exercise in Science Fiction but hits enough horror elements to keep the rabid wolves of the dark genre at bay. Besides a dark traveller notion, that actually goes a bit beyond Jeff Lindsay's concept in the Dexter novels, we have an apocalyptical event going down, and a general feeling of mankind screaming into the encroaching darkness. There's a feeling that at any given moment The Finger of God could throw off the shackles and go epic on us, Williams manages to rope things in however and keep the eye line down to your normal run of the mill people. The horror elements loom large in the darkness but the Author threads a narrow path to avoid descending into the total chaos that the dark genre demands.

Story is everything with this novel, thankfully it's solidly written as well.

This isn't to say that the Science Fiction elements are completely suffocating. While we are getting some hard core SciFi that should have the pocket protector crowd squealing with delight, Williams also ventures into the murky waters of the Space Opera end of the SciFi maintenance shed. I'll leave it to the reader to discover those aspects for herself, getting a tad too close to spoilers as it is. All in all the Author balances the various genres and forms a cohesive whole that very much has a re-read factor going down for itself. I would actually suggest reading the novel twice at a minimum, there's going to be a lot you will miss otherwise, yes the novel is compulsive reading and a page turner.

While The Finger Of God is certainly unique in how it approaches the plot there are some influences weighing in that I was happy to see in a sort of pop culture reference fashion. The epilogue chapter, set in a dump in Geelong for heaven's sake, brought to mind the opening gambit of Alien Resurrection (the extended version), in that it magnifies a common Earth creature to great effect. The red menace, still trying to avoid spoilers here, has been used to effect in both the old Trojan Empire comics and Stargate SG1, with naturally Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz also throwing their respective hats in the ring. It's a technological horror that has increasingly been praying on the minds of those of us in the West and thus providing a good well of unease for various Writers to draw inspiration from. Actually Robert Hood may have drunk the same tainted waters in the past as well from memory. Author Williams spins his influences in new directions and adds a cosmic framework to them, thus avoiding the dreaded "seen it before got the tee" issue.

One of the areas of the Science Fiction novel that Keith Williams seems steadfastly out to avoid is the metaphysical. For sure the Writer has a few things to say about the human condition, not all complementary, but given the subject matter a discourse on the meaning of God seemed appropriate. While the "G" word gets a mention and there's at least one character with thoughts of the immaculate on his mind, the whole concept of the definition of God is stillborn and remains undeveloped. Being very careful not to give away spoilers here, when you have one race of totally benign creatures and one race simply extolling the virtues of chaos and war then the framework is there for some deep and heavy thoughts. Williams is happy enough to discard the philosophical in pursuit of the, in terms of a dark genre novel, higher calling of the story itself. So don't worry things don't get bogged down in the mire of how many angels can cavort on the head of a pin in the face of an Alien invasion.

Naturally by page last there's room for a sequel sometime in the future and I for one will be dialling into that release quicker that a tweeny Twilight fan can jump on a new team Edward teeshirt. That's not to say that the Author hasn't finished the novel and left great swaths of plot development unresolved, The Finger of God reaches a satisfactory conclusion but does leave the reader hankering after another volume. On the bright side of the Martian probe Author Keith Williams does mention at the end of the novel that there might well be a future sequel to look forward to.

Keith Williams approaches the novel like a seasoned pro and touches all the right bases in terms of writing style, plot development, and characterisation. The writing is easy to fall into, one of those novels that will sweep you up and leave you breathless as the last page rushes towards you, and which doesn't place a single step wrong thus avoiding taking you out of the story. There's a mystery to be solved through the first half of the novel, the answer isn't what you might expect, and Williams nails the idea of things spinning out of control at an ever increasing speed. Perhaps a few more side stories would have rounded out the novel? I was literally on the edge of my seat as the situation became increasingly hopeless and was blown away by The Quiet Earth style ending of the novel. Williams gives excellent visual narrative flow, this book would make one hell of a movie. Each of the characters presented in the novel are believable and act in accordance with their established traits, there are no left field "super" power attributes coming into play here to save the day. I guess one of the criticisms that could be levelled at the book is a certain character and his "dark passenger", however read through to the conclusion before making a judgement call, it all works in a well rounded fashion and the character although not fully developed, maybe a cipher for one aspect of the species? - works in accordance with his own terms of reality.

Clearly I was rocking along to Keith Williams beat in The Finger of God and had a lot of fun with the novel. Besides a slight regret that the metaphysical wasn't fully explored I was happy with the head long rush toward the sensational ending. Keith Williams will drag you into his novel, and will leave you somewhat battered and bruised by the final page. A much underrated book that in my mind deserves a lot bigger circulation, someone drop a copy on George Lucas's desk stat!

The Finger of God is available online from Equilibrium Books, click through. The list price is $27.95, though I would imagine you might be able to find a better price if prepared to put in the finger work and check the various Aussie online sellers.

ScaryMinds Rates this read as ...

Excellent read that will have you wanting to find out what happens next, be careful picking this one up at bedtime, it doesn't let up from first page to last.