3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun and thought provoking, July 29, 2008
This review is from: Exit, Pursued by a Bee (Paperback)
I love to read books a little bit quirky, a bit out of the ordinary and after reading the blurb for this book, how could I resist?
"Exit, Pursued by a Bee is driven by a Southern-belle heroine-astronaut, involves a paleolithic mongrel called Kur, Glastonbury Festival chaos, steamy sex in space, a mean-momma loose-cannon journalist and an out-of-control general who'd fix anything by nuking it.... "
The cover has a picture of Glastonbury Tor (somewhere we've always been meaning to get to, but never quite got around to it yet!) with eerie cloud formations around the famous hill that intrigued me even more.
I was hooked from the first page. Major Kallandra Harvard and her long-term partner, Derek, are taking a break at Glastonbury before they both join the first ever manned NASA mission to Mars but their next mission will be a lot closer to home.
Strange things are happening all around the globe; sacred hills and mountains begin to crack, as if struck by earthquakes. Kallandra and Derek are the one of the first people to witness this, being right on Glastonbury Tor when it begins to disintegrate revealing a large metallic sphere.
The spheres are appearing all over the world. What are they? What are they doing? Are they some sort of alien visitor from space? Some new technological warfare? Or something else? Kallandra and Derek are drafted in to help figure things out, despite opposition from bureaucrats and the military. Early cave paintings are discovered which show what appear to be pictures of the spheres. It seems they have been around longer than everyone had thought possible...
The pace is fast moving, but with well-drawn characters that you care about. There are no two-dimensional cut-outs here. And any book that used the word 'boffin' in its proper context gets bonus points from me, being married to one ;)
I have to admit, some of the science in the book went a bit over my head but to be fair you don't need a degree in physics to enjoy this rollicking good story. Kallandra is a feisty heroine who takes no nonsense and you can just go along for the ride as she and Derek try to figure things out. Very enjoyable book.
Reviewed by Annette Gisby, author of The Chosen
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Exit - Pursued By A Bee, December 12, 2008
This review is from: Exit, Pursued by a Bee (Paperback)
Geoff Nelder's attempt at the SciFi genre is a refreshing change from the hackneyed old plots of aliens invading the Earth only to be chased off or defeated by the hero or heroine. In this delightful storyline, the aliens are actually leaving the Earth and the heroine must chase them down and convince them to come back and stay or the Earth will be destroyed. Try to wrap your mind around *that* little tidbit. Geoff also seems to have had entirely too much fun researching and exploring the anomalies of space and time to the point that the whole premise for this very different kind of novel was well thought out. If you had to stifle a yawn when picking out your last SciFi novel, you'll wake up refreshed after you get a few pages into this one.
-Stormm
Author of The Tales of the Witch Clan Series
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Raises unsettling questions about the very fabric of who we are, November 13, 2008
This review is from: Exit, Pursued by a Bee (Paperback)
Most of us experience a psychological disconnect between "time's arrow"; the accepted construct that time is moving ever forward in a neat continuous stream (the basis for most of our routines, our calendars, and our plans), and the way we experience time. Everyone knows that time goes faster when you're having fun; faster for adults than it does for children; faster when you've got children than when you don't. In his latest novel, Geoff Nelder takes that disconnect one step further, and plays with the notion that time discoherence may be the norm, while our sense of a smooth, calendar driven arrow, is one that is artificially created and able to be removed. His science is superb, and like all good sci-fi, he builds his plot on scientific principles that are absolutely believable, mirrored as they are to what we already understand; even when aliens are involved.
The story takes, primarily, the point of view of Kallandra, a NASA scientist who is about to go on the first manned mission to Mars with her fiancé Derek. Their plans are interrupted when, while relaxing pre-flight at the Glastonbury Festival, the Tor begins to rise up, and disintegrate, revealing a large vibrating metal sphere. Kallandra's natural curiosity is piqued, and from that point on, the spheres become her focus as she tries to determine what they are, how to communicate with them, and above all, how to stop them from destroying the Earth by leaving and taking `time's arrow' with them.
There are many theories about the spheres posited in this book: that they have kept time stable, that they are harvesting time, and that they are both agents of good and evil. The way in which the appearance of the spheres brings out both the positive and negative in the characters is part of what works well in this story. Kallandra herself is a believable character, full of energy, erotic and intelligent. Derek too progresses in the story, from an earwax picking nerd to someone with enough foresight to move beyond jealousy and work against the system he has believed in. Other characters such as the handsome playboy Claude and Tabatha and the conniving journalist, are less believable, though they progress the plot effectively.
Although Exit, Pursued by a Bee is primarily a character driven story, some of the most poignant parts of the book are in observation of setting. Nelder clearly loves the space his characters inhabit, and passages tend towards the lyrical and evocative.
An interesting side story involves Derek's cousin Blake, who takes a trip back in time to meet a Paleolithic caveman named Oqmar, 20,000 years before present. But by now time has become a clear illusion, with both Oqmar's Paleolithic world and Blake's 21st Century being more or less concurrent as they watch the same spheres rise from the Earth.
Nelder shakes our entire notion of what `present' means, and in so doing, also what death and life mean. Characters die but sometimes they don't really. If we aren't moving forward, then maybe even the notion of change is an illusion. The most interesting thing about Exit, Pursued by a Bee , is not the myriad unanswered questions it raises about the spheres, or whether Kallandra was meant to be with Claude or Derek, or even whether Kallandra saves the world or not. By undermining, in the most quantum of ways, the way we perceive the notion of time, it raises the whole question about what life is and who we are. In the end, the one thing we're left with is a kind of constant throughout the novel: Kallandra's tactile sensations. When time is no longer the backbone of our lives, and everything we perceive about ourselves disappears, those sensations remain. Nelder has created a novel that will both satisfy readers at a deep level, and at the same time raise unsettling questions about the very fabric of who we are.
Magdalena Ball is the author of Sleep Before Evening
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